Foreword(and forewarned): This story may not be suitable for all readers. There's some not nice stuff going on, though I've tried to avoid it as much as possible. For that, gentle reader, I apologize in advance.

He jumped a foot when a man’s voice hollered,”Bitch, you hold it right there, hold it right there, or by God, I’ll—holy motherfuck, that kid’s got a freakin’ bomb in his—”

“DEUS VULT!” Matt screamed at the top of his lungs, as with a thought, he closed the device’s triggering circuit.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:56:59 ZULU

And, nothing happened.

“Not today, you fucking little ratbag,” that miserable black bitch told him, as the Gnats all descended on the operative, and tore the backpack off him, rifling through the sumbitch for the device which was supposed to have ensured unquestioned support for his policies.

“This,” that bonesmoking Middie son of a bitch, as much trouble as his old lady had ever been, said, standing in front of the Ezra basic-training center,”is Jay Todman, FedNewsNet, reporting to you live from the Ernest R. Anderson Basic Training Center in Ezra, Rude Union of Backstabbers.

Just a few seconds ago, this town and its 86 and a half thousand inhabitants came very close to being obliterated from the surface of Terranova, all to generate popular support for an unlawful executive order posing as a duly-ratified amendment to the Articles of U—”

“Fucking get him off the goddamn Net, any means necessary, you get me?!” screamed the Governor of the Union, hurling a waterglass of Evan Wilson across the resort’s banquet hall at Damien d’Souza’s stupid Casshole self, as d’Souza shouted orders for that dumb Californio bastard to fucking turn off his cam, and haul his worthless ass offworld, ASAP.

While that miserable excuse of a father was just standing there, chuckling.

“That only takes care of them, little Guy,” he had the balls to tell him.

“It’s all over the Net,” he added,”they were all tuned in to her, when she led them right to the little brat, and, what’s even better, your men and that boy were gassing off to one another the whole time, and they caught every bloody word of what they said, every sheep-shagging damned word of it’s on the Net, as we—”

With a roar, the Governor of the Union charged the Chairman of the Executive Council, hellbent on killing him where he fucking stood.

That motherfucker busting him in the mouth instead, knocking him into the arms of that wetback son of a bitch Theodore Krantz.

“I tried to warn you about her,” Tarrant screamed at the Governor of the Union, as he easily broke Krantz’s hold,”but you dismissed me and what I had to say as weakness, as being soft like that fool Varnadore! Now, you’re right up it, me boyo, right up it, and you’d better have one damn good explanation ready for your people, so they don’t fucking string you up by your goolies from the flagpole of your Capitol!”

“What now?!” the true Israel demanded. when Tarrant abruptly fell silent, noticing everyone else’s eyes were on the holoprojector as well, the Governor of the Union turning just in time to see the little bastard break free of the Gnats holding him, and reach in the pocket of his jeans—

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:00:00 ZULU

—for a Lil’ Bang, someone using her voice screaming “nooooooo!” as she jumped him.

A half second too late...

“...you murdering goddamn little bitch!” Daddy screamed over and over, kicking her ass, beating it with his belt. “You fucking killed your own goddamn, mother, your own goddamn mother, nine and a half months fucking pregnant, and you fucking killed her, because you’re a goddamn chieckenheaded fucking feral-ass bitch who can’t fucking stand the sight of other feral-ass fucking bitches, so you FUCKING KILLED HER!”

“No,” she was stupid enough to try and tell him,”you—”

He drove her head into the hood of the car, savagely kicking her ass again, shrieking,”you did it, YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT, DON’T YOU DARE FUCKIN’ PUT IT OFF ON ME, YOU GODDAMN CHICKENHEADED FERAL FUCKING ASS BITCH, ‘CAUSE YOU—”

Blue lights strobing in the darkness, another man telling Daddy...

“...bitch, we got him, you hear me, we got him!” a Gnat wearing a major’s oak leaves on his suit screamed in her face, Jami struggling in the arms of her aunt, uncles, three or four others in Commonwealth grey, the commander of the Unbroken cursing the goddamn little son of a bitch over and over, as the Gnats led him—fucking smiling—past the smoking spatters of blood, bone and grease that had been two more she couldn’t fucking save.

He looked so very much like her...

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

11) Marks Of Weakness, Marks Of Woe
“I walked thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And, mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church apalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh,
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.”
—William Blake, “London”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:01:13 ZULU

Sunni Pate came screaming up Gralan Avenue, pulling into the circular drive in front of Ernest R. Anderson Basic Training Center, just in time to see her youngest son led away by a pair of National Policemen to a waiting cruiser, floggters by the score surrounding them.

“Hey, Mama,” the little bastard dared say to her as she got out of the white ‘70½ GMT Vaquero dualie-dualie and started walking towards him, a Gnat blocking her way, telling her,”I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t let you near—”

“He’s my son,” Sunni said, forcing the words out, wanting nothing more than to strangle him for what he’d done to Shelby and to Lorelei Hicks’ little girl.

A maroon ‘75 GMT Magnum with tinted windows and a MiniNatRes plate on its front bumper then wheeled up, Sunni’s husband Randy getting out of the vehicle, half running past the Gnats and the floggers, kneeling and grabbing Matt by both shoulders, asking him,”you all right, son?”

“They was feelin’ on each other, “ Matt said,” Shelby even said she loved that lil’ skank Krista Hicks.”

“She never did wanna do right, son,” Randy said, one of the Gnats telling him,” Randy, we’re gonna have to—”

“Yeah, Darryl, go ‘head,” Randy said, telling Matt,”don’t worry ‘bout a thing, son, they’ll have you on your way home in no time,” as the Gnats put him in the back of their cruiser, got in themselves and drove away.

Then, she came out, her uncles, Neesha, and a hundred DirtCom Starmarines in full armor all flanking her, the floggers all zeroing in, asking her the same stupid questions over and over, Jami looking like that was the last fucking thing she wanted, Carson Selkirk snapping,”y’all leave her the fuck alone!” as he, Neesha, his twin brother Draco, the Commonwealth Starmarines, and Jami all walked towards where a Commonwealth Star Force Greyhawk assault shuttle had landed.

Jami looking dead at Sunni.

Whispering:

“He looks a lot like you.”

before walking off.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:11:59 ZULU

“I have the unpleasant duty,” the holoimage of Governor Guy Thomas Zellner said, from the steps of the Capitol in New Athens,”to announce that a conspiracy against our Union has been exposed today, and an even more unpleasant duty of announcing that it was orchestrated by a man I considered closer to me than a brother, one who, with the aid of various radfem organizations, and, possibly even with the help of Communist National Socialist agents, has insinuated his way into the third highest office within the government of this Union.”

No one within the packed restaurant dared move or speak, as the Governor of the Union continued:

“Former Attorney General Micheal Bauer is a traitor to us all; with the help of several veteran operatives within the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate, he devised a plan guranteed to win popular support for Amendment 42 to the Terranovan Articles of Union, a plan which involved the murder of over 250 million people in a three-county area.

His plan was this: Veteran TSID operatives won over to his side recruited twelve-year old Matthew Pate to carry ten kilograms of matter and antimatter in his backpack, which he was to then detonate inside the basic-training center in Ezra; the device had a yield of 215.1 megatons of TNT and would have devastated Flynt, Martinez and Bibb Counties, killing everyone not otherwise protected by magneto-hydrodynamic shielding.

Thankfully, both the TSID and the National Police, in a joint effort, were able to discover the conspiracy and stop it before any harm could come to pass. Those responsible, including former Attorney General Bauer, have been taken into custody; futhermore, as of this time, I have used my authority under the Articles of Union to remove Micheal Bauer from office, effective immediately, and appoint, in his place, Bulloch County Sheriff Thurbert Clarke Baker, pending the outcome of special elections to be held two months from today.”

As Ibrahim Dimetry dropped what he was doing to look at the HV, one of the reporters said:

“Governor Zellner, Bernie Shaw, CBN News. Sir, what truth is there in the allegation of election fraud concerning the referendum on Amendment 42 to the Terranovan Articles of Union?”

Zellner answering:

“I’m afraid it is true, Bernie, one of the reasons the traitor Micheal Bauer and his radfem co-conspirators were willing to sacrifice a quarter-billion people for their ‘greater good.’

The TSID were to issue a report before the House of Commons today concerning the results of a two-month investigation into allegations of fraud and corruption within the Ministry of State, fraud and corruption extending from the top down; I will get into that more in just a moment, Bernie, but, first, let me answer your question.”

“What a fuckin’ surprise,” Ibrahim heard Calvin Hobbes say from the low counter. “I knew for years that Mickey Mouse Bauer was just a puppet of ‘em goddamn radfems.”

“When the polls closed at 19:00 on the night of the special referendum,” Zellner continued,” now-former Secretary of State Karen Hillary ordered election workers to blank the Ministry of State’s AI network, so that no one would ever know how the people of the Union truly felt about this attempt to impose left-wing social fascism upon our children; as it turned out, Bernie, the people did not think Amendment 42 should be the answer our Sovereign and Most Perfect Union should offer in response to the previous tragedy at Anderson Basic Training Center, that police-state legislation was something only a Communist, National Socialist, democratic State would dare draft and impose upon its people; when the radfems realized they were going to lose today, and they couldn’t do a damn thing to stop the will of His Sovereign People in opposing the designs of a matriarchy—”

“Donna McIntyre,” K.C. Oliver, seated in his usual booth on the stretch end, shouted,”Gilda Schrenko, Killer Cyndi, and all ‘em other radfems told the Mouse that we all had to fuckin’ die to keep 42 alive!”

“—they, along with their feminized sojus soyboi of a so-called Attorney General,” Zellner concluded,”came up with this horrific plan to snuff out 250 million innocent lives like they were nothing.”

He paused for a second, Ibrahim simply shaking his head, David Bell, sitting in the same booth as K.C., commenting,”I don’t know why he’s so surprised, they’re all like that, willin’ to kill their own damn mamas, just because they hate what they are.”

“He’s a man like the rest of us,” Ken Birdsong said from the last booth on the stretch end,”he ain’t wired up to think like them.”

“Yeah,” David said,”you’re right about that.”

“—has been relieved of her duties and placed under arrest by the National Police,” the Governor of the Union said. “Due to the nature of her crimes and the possibility that she may be liberated by her offworld allies, we have taken the precaution of having her moved to the Union Feminine Rehabilitation Colony on Cocytus, until she is ready to stand trial before the Sheriff’s Association in Atlanta Three—”

“I know that’s right,” Calvin commented,”though they’ll damn sure do that to a man; all one of them’s gotta do is open her legs, an’ holler ‘rape!’ and one of us ends up getting crucified for it.”

“Just like Eli,” K.C. said, another reporter on HV asking:

“Governor, what about the boy involved in the conspiracy. Will he be charged—”

“Hell no!” David shouted at the HV. “Matt didn’t know no better, he’s just a kid, for Christ’s sake; you put him in an adult prison, or, even in a YDC, ‘em boys’ll eat him alive, turn him into their lil’ cupcake to pass round like a pack a damn smokes!”

“He’s,” David repeated,” just a damn kid!”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:15:00 ZULU

“Clearly, he is a child,” Gotchanow had the gall to fucking tell the worlds,”and, as such, he is incapable of even forming the intent to commit a terrorist act, or the intent to commit murder.”

“Bastard,” spat Senior Captain Jameison Lanier at the holoprojection of that miserable North Coast soyboi son of a bitch, the bonesmoking piece of shit continuing:

“Matt Pate is the real victim here, ladies and gentlemen; he is an otherwise normal boy, who believes in Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, whose child-like innocence was cynically exploited, then stripped from him by those who he should’ve been able to trust, not the least of whom was his own moth—”

The table flew across Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Belle Poule’s spinhab and through its ceiling-mounted holoproj with a scream of grief and rage; the commander of the Unbroken followed it, as it broke in two against a bulkhead, and kicked the busted pieces for good measure.

“Yeah,” was Jami’s only response, as she stared down at the wrecked table, Katelyn adding:

“On the other hand, Jami, you saved over a quarter-billion pe—”

“For what?!” Jami wanted to know. “So that Guy Scumbag Fucking Zellner can have another crack at killing ‛em all?”

“—from being annhilated,” Katelyn finished.” The Defense Staff’s voted to award you and your people the Distinguished Service Cross for your part in—”

“—helping to hurt more people than I saved in the long run,” Jami replied.

“Unbroken and the rest of your squadron’s working up in the AD Leonis Test Range now,” Katelyn said, after a pause.” You’ll join your squadron there, immediately, complete the working up, and the FOST, then join STANSTARFOR 5 at Twice-Born. ”

“...what little Matthew needs most right now,” the new Yanker AG had the unabashed effrontery to tell See BS’ Morley Schafer and the rest of humanity,”is love, not incarceration in a juveneille facility, let alone in an adult prison, with adult criminals—murderers and such—who will prey upon his innocence and his weakness, just as others have already done and further traumatize him through unspeakable phsyical, psychological and sexual abuse.”

It dropped even further to the ground, as Thurbert Clarke Baker—in his beribboned clown suit of a sheriff’s hunter green dress uniform—added:

“What you and everyone else have to understand is that his bringing that antimatter device and that gun to basic with him today is exactly the same as my son bringing his Pocket Monster cards to basic—”

Some of that tea went down the wrong pipe, Unbroken’s Starmarine commander sputtering and coughing as he interjected ”do what now?!”

“You mean to say,” Schafer, no less at a loss for words than Drac, asked,”that the Lil’ Bang and the ten kilograms of matter and antimatter, that...that, something which had the potential to kill over 250 m-million people—”

“Were just toys,” Baker replied, as if he were repeating Canon truth,” probably the only toys he had in his life.”

“Motherfuck,” was Dunstan’s only comment to that, as Baker started insisting,”You have to understand—”

“If ever I needed a drink, Micki,” Drc said slowly, looking up at his 2ic, “I need one now.”

“How is she?” he asked.

Micki just closed her eyes and shook her head.

“That’s what I thought,” Drac whispered, nodding his head.

“She’s beating herself up in the gym,” Micki said, opening her eyes.

“She blames herself,” she said, through clenched jaw, balled fists, and tears running down her face. “She always blames herself, knowing there wasn’t a gopping thing she could’ve done differently, knowing she helped save over a quarter-billion people from being blasted out of existence.”

“It’s not enough,” Drac said softly, shaking his head.

“No,” Micki whispered. “No, it’s not, Drac.”

“Smokes monkeybone,” Drac said.

“Yeah,” Stevie repeated.

“Yeah,” Drac replied.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 18:23:27 ZULU

“He’s a little boy,” Carson Selkirk heard Earnestine Lucas say. “He didn’t know no better, there’s no reason for him to be tried as an adult.”

“’Sides,” she added,”if he goes to Hardaway or the Bay, he’s just gonna end up being somebody’s lil’ cupcake.”

“Dam’ sho will,” her brother Henry, almost as acccomplished a shitstain as Whore Ass, added. “Even in YDC, they’s some hard-co’ muthafuckas up in dere and a boy like him, ‘specially with a lil’ ol’ baby face like that, they be passin’ his cute lil’ ass round like a deck a cards.”

“Oh, hail yeah,” Johnathan Davis commented, Carson forcing himself to focus on the Blue Bird tradoc buses his replicator was spitting out like rats, instead of the conversations going on around him.

“Morality’s supposed to begin in the high chair,“ Shirley Dixon commented,”not on the Cross.”

“Damn skippy,” Carson replied, as Shirley went down the entire two kilometers of the replicator’s length, checking to see if he had all the feedstock needed to finish this production run, before going to hump the stock needed for the next run.

With the Gibson Valley plant a smoking, glassy, radioactive, and now-flooded, hole in the ground from Friday night’s bombardement, Carson and his surviving co-workers, lead men, line bosses, management, and assorted other parasites had been sent here to the Excelsior plant in Flyntsboro’s Ocmulgee East Industrial Park, previously shut down and awaiting sale, following its now-unemployed staff’s decision to vote in a union six months ago.

Six-months’ neglected machines were prone to showing their asses.

His control holodisplays lit up red again, for the third time, since he’d been called in to cover for Little Woodward’s drug-addled black ass six hours ago, Carson cursing, as he ran the diagnostic program, then shut down and rebooted the machine, after the diagnostic program didn’t find anything wrong.

It ran fine for a few seconds, before freezing up again, Carson cursing under his breath, as he rebooted it again.

“Replicator showing its rear end again?” Shirley asked, almost out of breath from humping the heavy-ass hoppers of feedstock to his malfunctioning replicator.

“Of course,” Carson replied, about this close to beating on the damn thing to get it to go right. “And, if I call maintenance, Ken Doll will scream bloody murder about the down time, and shift us both to another, equally-unreliable machine.”

“There’s the auto-maintenance system,” Shirley offered.

“Can’t get it working either,” Carson replied, shaking his head. “And, this order’s supposed to roll out tonight...was supposed to be Saturday, except the plant was bombed to Hell and gone Friday.”

He sighed, as he tried getting the auto-maintenance system working again.

“Get a chance to see her?” he asked.

“Just before I came here,” Shirley added. “She stopped by the house—Curtis’ house—to see Kay...worse possible time, Curtis had just fed her her dosage of bombshells,” ever since Kay had tried to stand up for herself seven years ago, just before her younger sister Ronnie had supposedly committed suicide, she’d been hooked on those goddamn things, a consequence of her being sent to the crazy house in Wesley and the things they’d done to her there,”and she was just sitting there, stoned out of her head, baby in her lap, dirty diaper, dirty t-shirt, screaming her head off; Ariel cleaned little Veronica up, changed her diaper, fed her, cleaned Kay up a little bit, before Curtis, Daddy, John and Angela all came in the house.”

She sighed, sniffling the tears down; three years ago, that bastard brother of hers had pimped his second-youngest daughter, Angela, to that drunkard of a plant superintendent for a hundred bucks and a jack bag of redbud, poor kid was pregnant with his second child, another girl.

“Curtis started cursing her,” Shirley said slowly,”grabbing at her, him and John both, she cut ‘em with her fusbeam, which really got them both mad and wanting to hurt her, probably would’ve tried, if your brother an’ a couple other Starmarines hadn’t been with her; instead, Curtis settled for telling her to get out of his house, or he’d call the law on her.”

Another pause, before she added,”I took her to see Lynn’s grave...and Ronnie’s.”

Carson nodding his head, as, somehow, he was able to boot up the replicator’s auto-maintenance system, sending its teks and nanos along the length of the replicator to troubleshoot it.

“Whattya know?” he remarked. “It’s working.”

“For now,” Shirley quipped.

“For now,” Carson repeated, watching the progress, or lack thereof, of the repair bots and nanos in finding and fixing the problem, at the same time he called up the specs for the next order—200,000 ‛76½ TMC RK Crossbone Vanguard Edition 6×6 pickups, all in black with yellow flames.

“It his mama dam’ fault,” he heard Ken Armistead boom from the end of the packing line,”he toin out way he did; from whut I hurd, she beat on his ass all the time, let the two gurls get away with all kinda shit, gave ‘em anythan’ they want, while he lucky to get new underwear every once in a while—”

“Yeah,” Johnathan said,”you live out that way.”

“I live in Robertson, while dey way out on Boy Scout Road, jus’ past Sugar Bear’s,“ Ken replied,”but her old man on the volunteer fire department wid me, and he tell me thangs; she beat the hail outta him too, make him do that S&M shit, let ‘em gurls a hers do that S&M shit to Matt too—”

“Daaammm,” said Earnestine, Henry asking,”why he put up wid it?”

“’Cause she got all the money, “ Ken said,”and all she got to do is halla ‘do-mestic abuse’ on him and the po-lice and the co’ts do anythan’ she want to him; same wid the gurls, all they gotta do is halla ‘rape’ on Matt, and he be the one goin’ to lockdown.”

“I kno’ dat rite,” Johnathan commented.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 19:28:24 ZULU

“You son of a bitch!” Jami screamed, as the robotic image of Guy Thomas Scumbag Zellner butsted her nose with an uppercut, Unbroken’s OC pummeling him relentlessly in reply, constantly moving forward, not one damn step back, staying in his face, and bashing it in over and over and over, til the aerogel deformed, and the skull underneath cracked, weeping carbon-polymer, and she still kept going at it, driving him into the ropes, and just whaling on him, even after he wasn’t capable of fighting her b—

“Battle ready, battle ready, flight crew to stations, flight crew to stations, command team to comcon at the double!”

Jami vaulted out of the ring, and zipped herself into her No.5 SWD, screwing on her lid, as she ran out of the gym, along the circumference of the spinhab’s main corridor, the klaxon sounding thinner and thinner, as the ship buttoned up, and blew herself out.

The rotation of the spinhab ceased abruptly, and she was able to leap in the microgravity, vault through one of the airlocks, and into her place at the center of the lower comcon, Ariel, manning her station in the upper comcon, echoing:

“Seelonce distress, seelonce distress, seelonce distress, this is the Red Cross medical relief ship Bernadette Healey, transporting refugees from Twice-Born; am under attack by hostile machines, have taken heavy casualties, engineering spaces, hangar bays, and spinhab all holed...we are defenseless, have women and children on board, someone please—

audio only, the commander of the Unbroken seeing the Red Cross medship for herself in the master holoproj, set upon by Preds, King Cobras, and twelve Musocgee-class strike cruisers, six blue ones, with the coiled snake insignia of the Alliance For Ethical Government, six red ones sporting the flaming phoenix and star of the Twice-Born Republican Starfleet, close behind, pumping 203s into the battered hull.

“Intercept and upcycle, max sublight!” she ordered. “Squadron, on me!”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 19:30:00 ZULU

The vibrating hum of the upcycling Rittermark jenny made Ariel’s teeth hurt.

Then, for approximately 2.4 milliseconds, everything was in slow motion, as the generator momentarily tunneled the ship a kiloklick through hyperspace, before she dropped back into norm for another approximately 2.4 miliseconds, th—

Ariel’s stomach lurched, and the deckplate—set perpindicular to the ship’s thrust axis—groaned, its superdiamagnetic generators straining to compensate for the hard turn and burn Number One executed, before Unbroken tunneled back into hyperspace for another one-kiloklick, approximately 2.4 millisecond hop; Mister Littlejohn’s twenty-five 50mm massdrivers ripped into the King Cobras and Preds hammering the medship full of people just wanting to be safe and free, at the same time Mister Aguinaldo’s Raptors tore into a trio of hostile cruisers, one a Burnie Bird, the other two A Fucks, bomb-pumped 31.96-kiloton gras sailing through their gutted corpses to hulk three more hostiles turning to bring their guns to bear on Unbroken.

Kay and Angela were still trapped on that shithole planet, far beyond what little help their big sister could give them...probably just as far beyond hope too, them and her nieces.

Daddy and the quacks still had poor Kay bombed out on those fucking pills; she was the most talented musician out of all of them, wanted to be a country music singer when she grew up, a dream for which Daddy ridiculed her, as he abused her...and, poor Angela, twenty-one, two girls, two girls she was as helpless to protect from that goddamn drunkard, as she was herself...her youngest sister Margo...her baby...she’d run off after Ronnie had been hounded to her fucking grave, everyone believing she was living on First Street—the absolute worst part of the CLM—just another dope-addicted feral on welfare, five babies, whoring herself out to everything warm-blooded, et cetera, et cetera, and we don’t discuss that bitch either...

The master holoproj flashed blue-white hot, alarms shrieking in Ariel’s head, her control holodisplays flashing red warnings, Unbroken’s starship engineering officer rattling off damage, even as she endeavored to fix what she could, and coordinate her team and the auto-repair system’s teks and nanos in fixing the rest.

She couldn’t do a damn thing for her sisters, but she could do her damn job, and keep her crew and ship alive.

So, she did just that.

“Tread on this, you fucks!” shouted Mister Partridge over shipnet, as she salvoed ten 203mm BPG warheads toward the six remaining hostile warbirds.

Three AFEG and three Loyalist machines went up in nova-hot blazes, as Unbroken flew past, cycling in and out on an intercept with the inbound heavies.

”Vigilant, Unbroken.” the Skipper said over shipnet. “ You and your flight fall back, escort the medship to Mons Calpa!Rest of y’all, let’s pile on these motherfuckers!”

Unbroken plowed into the Terranovan heavy’s fighters, either sweeping them aside with her MHD beam emitters or splatting them like bugs on a windshield with her 50s, while her 203s ripped into one of the Columbias, punching holes in his forward MHDs through which more bomb-pumped gras smashed and burned his dorsal saucer, and sheared off his port nacelle, the momentum of that sending him careening crazily through space, struggling to right himself, as 203s from another frigate—Terrible—finished him off.

Unbroken’s starship engineering officer fed more reactor power to reinforce the MHDs, while the Raptors Mister Alguinado had already deployed upcycled to their max translight ahv, and ran down the remaining Terranovan heavy, expending their remaining warloads to bring him down.

As Unbroken led three flights of frigates right down the Cassies’ throats.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 20:04:16 ZULU

“That’s some bullshit,” Scott Ogles bitched, trying to watch HV and serve customers at the same time, the black man in the MiniTrans uniform he was serving coffee to saying,”dam’ sho’ is,” on two.

“—but it is clear,” Doctor BJ Pack, the Flynt County training and doctrine superintendent said on the news,”that some sort of disciplinary action is called for in this case—”

“ He’s just a kid,” Scott shouted at Pack’s holo,” it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know any better, you dumb sunnuvabitch!”

“Watch your mouth!” Sunni barked out at him, the eighteen year old little punkass giving his district manager a dirty look before echoing the coffee drinker a ticket for his coffee.

“I ain’t stayin’ fo’ the drawin’,” the monkey said, only the three trillionth motherfucker to make that comment since the Chik n’ Waffle first opened for business, 464’s assistant manager, Amy Bridges, not looking away from her grill for a second, supplying the equally ancient reply,”but, we’ve got some lovely door prizes. Second prize is a date with Scott,” Scott shot the AMC a bird in response, the rest of the customers in the store at least chuckling,”and our first prize is waking up next to a horse’s head; frankly, sir, I think you’d rather have the horse’s head.”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

In spite of herself, Sunni was laughing, damn near dropping the napkin dispenser she was sticking a no-smoking icon onto, watching Scott get redder and mouthe the words “fuckin’ bulldyker.”

Sunni sighed, feeling the dirty look Lorelei Hicks was giving her boring through her back as she held on to the napkin dispenser for a little while longer.

She didn’t blame her, though she had to pretend she hated her, her daughter and Shelby as hard as she had to pretend she loved the little piece of shit who’d taken both their lives, who would’ve just as easily and remorselessly taken his mother’s life and the lives of 250 million others if Jami hadn’t ...

Jami had told her he looked like her.

She was right.

She might as well had closed the trigger herself on her daughter and her best friend.

Hell, her only friend, the only one who hadn’t been afraid to stand up for her; maybe, they had those feelings for one another, just as Jami and Sunni had had for one another when they’d been that age.

Would never know now, would she, the issue of her fucking loins had killed them both, and all the little son of a bitch was going to get for that, for almost blowing up three counties and over a quarter billion goddamn people, was three months’ suspension from basic, and, probably not even that, Walker Johnson was talking about taking this all the way to the Sheriff’s Association, if he had to, assuming Gotchanow and Thurbert Baker both didn’t get there first.

She would, of course, have to tell the worlds, tell Jami, that Matt was being unjustly punished, that he was the real victim, driven to murder and terrorism by bullying classmates or something else along those lines; the mother bore the blame for the sins of the son and the responsibility for defending him to the worlds, and God help her if she even thought to say what she really thought of the goddamn little bastard.

She already had to pretend she hated her girls, guilty only of having been born into this world; she would end up hating Maria for real, she was already starting to, her and Shelby both, because it was easier than watching helplessly, as...

Another sigh...choke down those tears, wipe your face, baby, don’t let nobody see you cry, God help you if that happened...

She pushed aside the swinging door, going in the back, looking for something to do, some reason to yell at Ibrahim’s sorry ass, stopping just short of the commissary, listening to the ragheaded motherfucker’s thick accent and Jody Harbuck’s Gomer Pyle voice, as they audited the commissary, probably getting it wrong, which meant she would have something to yell at him about after all...

She couldn’t yell at Jody about not having his prep done, he’d actually done it for once, though he hadn’t cleaned the prep sinks of all the waffle batter and dehydrated hashbrowns, which hadn’t come as a great shock.

Nodding her head, she smiled, she had her reason to bitch him out as well.

Her smile faded as quickly as it had come; she couldn’t be honest with herself, couldn’t be there for her daughters, so she had to settle for finding ways of making people who were just guilty of trying their best to do right by her as miserable as she could, and, if she was lucky, drive them away from her like she’d done Jami and Neesha, and everyone else she’d found herself giving a damn about, while having to give aid and comfort to people not even worth the thought to close the circuit to blow their fucking brains out.

Staring down at the prep sinks, she shook her head.

Jami was right.

He did look a lot like her.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 21:16:54 ZULU

The Gnats at the gatehouse patted him down for weapons, scanned him, his vehicle, the couple dozen three-liter bottles of pop, and the five delivery pouches holding a dozen large pizzas apiece.

Amongst other things.

The Gnats passed Mark Ryan Sheppherd through without incident.

Just as the 16-year old pizza delivery driver had been told they would.

Mark drove his ‛77 Dodge Charger down Fort Zellner’s main street, making sure to stay just within the speed limit, not letting his speed drop below that, lest he arouse suspicion; not everyone had been in on the operation, he’d been told, so, until the time came for his true delivery, he had to be careful.

The fort’s main street curved through various warehouses and parking lots holding panzers, mech artillery platforms, gun jeeps, and ironhorses, before turning sharply to the right, the Charger automatically stopping at the red light at the intersection, waiting for it to turn green, before allowing Mark to continue on to another intersection, crossing it into the fort’s housing area, making another right into his intended target.

The rank upon rank of barracks holding the 23rd Shock Army’s contractors, supervisors and junior officers.

Calmly, knowing what he was about to do would only move him further along the Evolutionary Path, toward the Blessed Hope that was Deo sapiens, Mark pulled into the nearest empty parking space, composed himself, then got out of the car.

“About goddamn time you got here,” snapped a white man, a lieutenant according to the rank insignia on the collar of his powered armor.

It was time, then.

“What fuckin’ took you s’goddam—“ the lieutenant started to demand, before Mark looked him in the eye, whispered “Deus vult.”

And, with a thought, closed the triggering circuit on ten kilograms of matter and antimatter.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:06:22 ZULU

“...eleven year old girl screamed ‘Victory for the Femnazi!’ before detonating the ten kilograms of matter and antimatter—an approximate yield of 215.1 megatons of TNT—strapped to her body,” TMS’ Carolyn Minh was forced to say,” instantlly annhilating all nine million men of the 23d Shock Army, all of the Twice-Born capital city of Zellnersboro and everything within a 105.5-kilometer radius of the city in all directions; officals with the Twice-Born Ministry of Homeworld Security estimate the death toll to be at least 250 million people, including the men of the 23d Shock Army.”

All Jay Todman could do was whisper Jesus’ name, as he stepped through the telegate focus and onto Unbroken’s telegate stage, Carolyn continuing:

“This terrorist attack comes five hours after the joint investigation by agents of the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate, the Cascadian Internal Security Buerau, the Twice-Born Special Internal Investigations Buerau and Media Committee Security revealed that the alleged atrocities being inflicted by Terranovan forces upon the people of Zellnersboro—as reported yesterday by us and other mediacorps—were, quote ‘outright sodding lies,’ unquote, fabricated by the radfem-controlled Media Committee in an attempt to manipulate public sentiment against Federation peackeeping efforts on Twice-Born, according to Sidney Deal, MedCom Security Director, who, five hours ago, addressed floggers in a press conference held at Media Committee Headquarters in Skywalker Ranch’s Brandon Tartikoff Square.

As most of you may know, the words ‘Victory for the Feminazi!’ is the battle cry of the Femnazi terrorist movement from the Canonical Work, Star Trek, which Deal told reporters is popular with ferals of al— ”

“Shut it,” the weary FedNewsNet reporter whispered, the Yanker propaganda service disappearing from in front of his face.

Gotchanow’s solution to everything, one trooper breaks policy, he and his nine million fellow troopers get blown to Hell and gone, taking over 241 million more people down with them, that 241 million including six million Avalon Royal Guardsmen, though you wouldn’t hear about that from those MedCom dicksuckers.

“’Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’” Drac quipped, as he met Jay at the foot of the stage.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he joked further, though more pro forma than from any actual jest,”I meant ‛pest.’”

Jay chuckled anyway, in spite of himself and the mood.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:08:00 ZULU

“Another thirty seconds,” Drac said,”and, you’d have to find some other ride to Twice-Born.”

The battle-ready klaxon shrilled, as if to puncutate Drac’s point.

“You did bring your weapon, correct?” Unbroken‘s Starmarine commander asked, even as he started walking toward the ladder leading up to Ugly Duckling.

“Always,” Jay replied, breaking into a run to keep up.

“Good,” Drac replied, adding,”I know you were hoping for a hot meal and some rack time, but—“

“Is what it is,” Jay sadly commented, as he followed Drac up the ladder.

“Is,” he repeated,”what it is.”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:08:00 ZULU

“She got skillz, hayhay, she got skillz,” some idiots gabbled over and over to an all too generic hip-hop beat, a boy sitting on a sofa next to a blonde girl wearing skin-tight, leather hip-hugger shorts, platform heels and a studded leather halter top, the girl popping a fully-wrapped Starburst candy into her mouth, only, two minutes later, to stick out her tongue-studded tongue with the wrapper, tied neatly in a bow, on its tip.

Roger Selwyn Tarrant, High Commissioner of the True Britannic Republic of Oswald, sighed, as he sat watching HV in his suite in the Hilton Head Island Resort, knocking back the best brandy Yanker taxpayers could buy for a resort most of them would never see the inside of.

Back to Star Trek: The Living Legend, which Disney’s Lifetime Division were re-re-running as a supposed memoriam to those his imbecile of an only begotten son had snuffed in a city named for his far-savvier father.

When the show had gone to commercial, the first commander of the Enterprise, Commander William F. Buckley-Rogers—now Starfleet General—who had commanded Starcraft Enterprise during the first three seasons of the series(before Gerard Hunter had been forced to yield command to the much blonder and far more photogenic William Montana), was leading all of the Federation’s starcraft to the fateful rendezvous with the forces of the nasty, godless People’s Republic Of Ishtar.

Now, the Federation’s President, Richard James Cartar Jr., after insisting, just before the break, that the Starfleet not attack the Peep war cruisers Major Adonis and the soon-to-be-late Lieutenant Ishmael, out on deep patrol, had just spotted on their radar, retired to his quarters, where his whip-cracking dominatrix, the wicked Mistress General Gilda Bitchayev, matriarch of the planet Sappho(really?! Sodding Sappho?!) and a Federation Councillor, immediately ordered him to strip off his kit—including knickers and a push-up brassiere—get in bed and “submit to me, bitch!” Mistress Gilda immediately peeling off her one-piece leather camisole and her purple G-string knickers, strapping on her dildo and starting to roger poor President Cartar—who had secretly undergone forced transition to a feral at the wicked hands of Starfleet General Erika Benteen in the Star Trek Passage At Arms episode “Homefront”—when the action shifted to Lieutenant Ishmael being blasted out of space by those nasty Peeps just short of the Starfleet—contract negoiations having not gone well for Benedict Dirkssen last season—wave after wave of their Hatchet starfighters and Dreadnaught War Cruisers, commanded by horny nymphets lusting after Vulcan-Nietszchian first officers, destroying every starcraft but the mighty Enterprise, thegallant City Of New York, captained by Hikaru Nim, Freedom’s former helmsman, the nimble and tough little ship Climber 53D, helmed by the distinguished, beautifully-African Jefferson Davis “King Cobra” Archer, and the indomitable Pegasus, commanded by the manly Fleet General Buckley-Rogers.

The action then shifted back to President Cartar, aboard the doomed Atlanta(how bloody originial is that?! Tarrant had to wonder), on his knees in bed, Mistress Gilda ramming him from behind as she garotted him, Cartar moaning,“how could I have been so wrong?!” just as he expired, and the leader of the Peeps, the Empress Leeleth, daughter of Starcraft Enterprise’s long-since dead security officer, Lieutenant Tasha Strong(through yet another one of Star Trek’s revisionist bloody time-travel misadventures)entered the room, flanked by the dominatrices of her Imperial Household Guard.

Gilda—having been broken by Leeleth after having to surrender the starcraft Intrepid and its tame Borg helpmate, Two Outta Three(now Doma Matrix One, queen of the Borg Sisterhood), to the Peeps in the Star Trek Intrepid episode “A Show Of Force”—rolled off the bed, removed her dildo, and grovelled at her mistress’ jackbooted feet, Leeleth—sometimes played by Pamela Hartmann-Black—snapping a lead into place round Claudia Christayne’s neck and half-dragging her out of the room...

The Chairman of the Executive Council shook his head.

Gene Waumbaugh, the series’ now-deceased executive producer, had written Leeleth into the show ten years ago, at his son’s “request;” of course, certain concessions had to be made, the first of which involved cosmetic surgery to increase the size of Hartmann-Black’s knockers, since his son, epileptic trog that he was, hadn’t thought them big enough, though the real Angelique Gault’s were about the same size as her originial equipment.

Doubtlessly, the most powerful man in all of space—at least for now—thought to himself, as he recharged his glass, that troglodyte son of mine will “request” Waumbaugh’s successor, that arse Richard Siddig, to write Lanier, or a parody of her, into the show, after convincing his Common Legislature yesterday to pony up over a hundred meg Yanker silver, fifteen meg in real money, for anyone who could capture the Avenging Angel Of Kohoutek, and bring her back alive so she could be made to—

The doorbuzzer to his suite interrupted his thoughts.

“Sod right off, whoever you are!” Tarrant shouted, hearing the door being opened by one of his commandos in spite of his order, his trog of a son speaking:

“Someone told that little bitch what we were planning.”

“And, this concerns me in particular, why, little Guy?” Tarrant demanded, knocking back more brandy, refilling his glass, watching their Leeleth punish her Gilda girl for allowing the Pegasus, the City Of New York, the Climber 53D, and, especially, the Starcraft Enterprise, all to escape by taking a fuswhip to her bare bottom.

“Fuckin’ turn that shit off!” his son had the audacity to say, the HV shutting itself off, the bastard adding:

“Someone from inside this resort transmitted a text-only message in fucking Commie Shorthand to that little bitch over an hour, before that ratbag was supposed to blow everything in three counties to Hell; I just got the report from the TSID Internal Surveillance Center a few minutes ago.

That someone was so stupid as to think we wouldn’t monitor the data traffic from the OD system as a matter of course; he was, however, smart enough to use a standard Microsoft data-compression and E3 protocol, when he did send his little message, instead of any official scheme which would’ve made it easier for me to find out just who amongst us fucked me in the ass.”

“Bitch, don’t you dare fuckin’ get smart with me, or, by God, I’ll—” his only begotten son was idiot enough to scream at him, that idiotic thing serving only to have the barrels of Palmer/Walker IAWs shoved in his earholes.

“Does this fucking sound familiar, Pops?!” he asked anyway.

“Ball, 3,496.5 by -450, 1106.83.”

“It sounds like Commonwealth Shorthand, little Guy,” Tarrant replied calmly, downing another drink, refreshing his glass,”and I can tell you what it all means...as can Rashad, Theodore, Maxmillien, Leopold, Albert, Harrison, Damien, or even yourself; anyone of us who served in any of our secret services can easily decipher that message.”

“After the discussion we had before the incident concerning Jeff Selkirk’s little black bitch,” his son spat back,”I’m inclined to believe it was you who warned her, Pops!”

“Believe what you want, little Guy,” Tarrant replied. “It is the others you have to convince of your presposterous idea.”

“Is that all?!” replied his only begotten son.

“It’ll be the first thing on the table, when we meet in the morning,” he added, telling the commandos,”I don’t fuckin’ need a goddamn chaperone!” on his way out.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:08:00 ZULU

“...began when actor David Arnold Griswold,” the Telenet 424 anchor said,” the star of the popular Lifetime holovision series JAG and mayor of Telfair, was illegally installed as President of Twice-Born by his radfem, sojus, Illuminati, Bilderberger, Communist NatSoc, corpo-religious, interstellarist, Rothschild bankster Jewish backers during the recall election 56 years ago, the radfems aiding Griswold in spite of allegations that he sexually abused at least thirty women, including Catherine Bennett, his JAG co-star.”

John Keller sighed, the former CEO of the Venerian Multinational Cooperative packing the last of his things into his duffel bag, listening to the HV in his quarters tell him some of the alleged history of the civil war on TB:

“The controversy, as our viewers may recall, stemmed from contested electoral votes from Griswold’s own constituency, which forced election officials within the city to manually recount those votes, immediately after the incumbent President, Tomas Carerra, was declared the winner by the Twice-Born Ministry of State; however, Telfair’s own superintendent of elections and Griswold’s campaign manager, Kate Harris, stopped the recount barely three days into the process, claiming that preponderance of electoral votes was in Griswold’s favor, a decision which was immediately appealed by President Carerra to the Twice-Born Sheriff’s Association in Zellnersboro, where the decision was made to uphold Harris’ ruling, by a vote of 12-11, the deciding vote being cast by then-Thurmond County Sheriff Ruthann Ginsberg, a convicted radfem and femsex rights activist with ties to such organizations as M-POWER, the Lambda Group and even to the Commonwealth’s State Security Buerau; she also wrote the majority opinion on that decision.”

The doorbuzzer sounded, the Casshole on the HVcontinuing to run his mouth, as John told the person on the opposite side of the door to come in:

“Of the other eleven sheriffs ruling in the majority, at least eight of them also have ties to various offworld radfem and femperv-rights organizations, with one of the other three seen by several eyewitnesses days before the ruling which plunged an entire world into nearly six bloody decades of civil war, quote,’ walking arm in arm,’ unquote, through the halls of the Sheriff’s Association Building with the former Commonwealth ambassador to Twice-Born, Cynthea Pollock—”

“You wanted to see...” Tiger Morrison, the station’s senior operations engineer started to ask, his question dying in his throat, as his eyes fell upon the FedAerospaceForce blacks John was now wearing.

Looking at his old friend, John said, without preamble:

“VMC’s yours now, Tiger, as of midnight.”

“My God,” Tiger whispered. “They can’t—”

“I asked the Senate to reactivate my commission Saturday,” John replied,”after the shooting had stopped; it took them ‘til just now to decide; they’re giving me the Antares and her squadron, they’ll be here any moment to pick me up.

“That godforsaken place,” John replied, nodding his head. “Strike on the AFEG capital.”

“Damn you,” Tiger whispered, tears in the big man’s eyes.

“Can’t hide from the war, old friend, as hard as we’ve both tried to over the years,” John said slowly.

“I suppose not,” Tiger said, after a silence.

“I suppose not,” he repeated sadly.

Finally, he extended his hand.

“Bonne chance, mon vieux,” he said, John shaking his old friend’s hand.

Before saying goodbye.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“MHD shielding at 180% of rated field strength,” Executive Officer Claudia Littlejohn reported. “MHD beam emitters operating in defensive countermeasure mode, and set for max deflection. All nonessential power diverted to MHDs; Med Section on local power.”

“Upcycling...” Micki then reported,”...now!”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:10:19 ZULU

“Move it, skank!” Adam MacFarlane barked, the twenty-five year old mule driver laying into that nasty little ass with his fuswhip, laying into it some more when it started whimpering, like she actually fucking didn’t like it, when he knew damn good and well them lil’ sorority howlers were all painsluts, paddling and whipping the shit out of all the girlies that pledged them, making them douche each other out, before strapping it on each other, and God only knew what else them sick fucks did.

Goddamn, he had one in chat the other day, horny little bitch was talking about being bent over in the girls’ locker room in tradoc, with her little cheerleading skirt hiked up, her spankies down to her socks and screaming for every one of ‘em bulls on the baksetball(femball) and soccer teams to take her from behind with every fucking thing from broomhandles to fists and feet.

He got the little howler good on her titties when she tripped over her own feet, acting like it was so hard for her to be pulling that one little cart full of dysprosium ore down the tunnel to the processing plant; bitch didn’t even know what shame was, she wasn’t wearing a fucking thing but the straps hooking her up to the cart she was supposed to be pulling, wearing ‘em in such a way she was getting off every time they dug into that shit, though she acted like she didn’t like that either, they always did, they always had to pretend they were being forced to do what they made men and other bitches likeher do to ‘em, only fucking way a howler could even fucking have an orgasm.

“Get your ass up, bitch,” MacFarlane ordered his mule, whipping and kicking the ass the little piece of pussy just hung out there for that purpose,”get it up, now!”

“NOW, GODDAMN LIL’ HOWLER!” he screamed, hanging a steel-tipped work boot up in her shit again, grabbing her by her hair and forcing her onto her feet, shoving her to the limit of the yoke tying her to the cart as he screamed for her to,”fuckin’ pull that goddamn cart, you lazy goddamn fuckin’ bitch, and fuckin’ stop your goddamn whining, before I really give you something to...”

The mule driver’s voice died in his throat , as he strained his ears...that couldn’t be weapons fire echoing throughout....

He didn’t have to tell him twice, MacFarlane grabbing the nasty little skank up off the ground, where she’d fallen, again, pulling on her hair to force her onto her knees, dropping the fuswhip, pulling his fusbeam cutter from his equipment belt, firing it up, the goddamn little howler screaming at the top of her lungs, having the indecency to beg him for her worthless fucking li—

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:14:59 ZULU

Bastard stared down at the white-hot blade of burning light impaling him through his grotesquery he called a heart, Commander Draco Selkirk shutting down his fusbeam cutter, letting the son of a bitch drop dead onto the slush-covered floor of the mine nine and a half klicks beneath the city of Telfair—the capital of the so-called Alliance For Ethical Government and Twice-Born’s largest city—the poor thing he’d been about to murder shivering, curled up in a ball, her skin either black, blue or purple, bleeding welts everywhere on her infected, freezer-burned body, yoked by leather straps to a heavy-ass cart of unrefined dysprosium ore.

“Sir?” a young woman’s voice said, snapping him back to the task at hand.

“More or less,” he added, another of 1/1 Troop’s second gun team—Corpsman Violet McQueen—cutting the girl—nineteen if she were a day—free of the yoke, then tending to her wounds best she could.

The weapons fire from directly behind the commander of 515 Starmarine Regiment dropped off to nothing, the scanners in Drac’s HMD telling him the telegate he needed was another five hundred fifty meters ahead, just past an ore processing plant and a collection of other buildings in a compound fenced off with MHD shielding, heavily guarded by defenders organic and robotic.

“Motherfuck,” he interjected, his PCD’s lidar warning receiver screaming out warning, as it detected entirely too many targeting lidar beams coming his way,”we’ve got incoming! Hunker down and return fire!”

“Let’s killthese bonesmokers!” he added, already vectoring 13mm BPG in the direction of the enemy as fast as his weapon could hose them out.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:15:06 ZULU

Master Pilot Rhiannon Moseley smiled, as she turned the last AFEG ortillery platform into ten trillion hot pieces of junk raining down on the frozen surface of the planet Twice-Born, just as it was about to get a bead on the Starmarines below, Ugly Duckling then cycling in and out across the planet’s sky and orbital space, with her six Raptors in echelon, coming close enough to a Yanker Musocgee to scrape paint, a thought sending a burst of 50mm BPG downrange in passing.

All of them striking home and blowing the Yanker away, the Mid frigate it had been whaling on turning round on her RCS thruster, vectoring ten 203s past Ree to seriously fuck up an Ozzie Enoch Powell-class battlewagon trying to get the drop on her, while Ree found herself scraping the top of an N.C.O. Charlottesville-class battleship, not hesitating to close the triggering circuit, and drive 50s right down its throat until the bitch fell out of the sky like a stone, shedding bits of himself as he plowed right into the Redeemption Mountains.

She had just enough time for a quick check on where the rest of the squadron’s Greyhawks were.

All of them were still in it, scattered all across the sky over the city of Telfair, taking out whatever targets they could acquire, Ree watching in shock and amazement as the planetary headquarters building for Excelsior Mining took a full volley of 320-ton bomb-pumped gras from Hunting Hawk, hesitated for just a moment, then crumpled with a crack! and a roar of blue light.

Fuck!

The shipnet screaming in her head was the only thing which saved her from her own inattention and the thousands of 130s, 152s and 203s coming up from Telfair to annhilate her, Ree evading those—just—only to have a whole slew of Predator starfighters on her ass end, all of them firing 50s in continous cycle, as she jinked, burned, and upcycled to try and get the drop on them, the Preds having none of that, matching her maneuvers, upcycling with her, staying fastened onto her six, the aft shielding radiating blue and indigo, shipnet warning her it would go any moment now.

She executed an Immelmann which strained Ugly Duckling’s spaceframe—and his pilot’s body—to the limit, swooping in behind the Preds, and killing as many of them as she could, before their pilots realized what she’d done, most of the Yankers already arcing back round to try and kill her, as she upcycled again.

This time, she did a better job of anticipating their response, swooping down into their midst, as they tried to get the drop on her, Ree closing the triggering circuit, then jinking hard, burning, and upcycling again, before the surviving Predators got wise, turning on the tails of three of them, each running in a different direction, Unbroken’s assault shuttle pilot nailing them all, juking down and hard to the right an instant ahead of the darva alarm blowing off, and telling her their little brothers had jumped her from behind, Ree flipping her bird over hard, counter-burned harder, flying upside down as she cycled in and out through their formation, dispatching all of them with a single volley before they even had a chance to open fire.

And, a squadron of 12 Casshole FH-14D King Cobras all came screaming down upon her, guns blazing.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:18:01 ZULU

“Oh, hell yeah!” exulted Major Pax Judas “Hammer” Rabwin , commanding VFH-62 Red Dogs, the hyperspace fighter squadron assigned to the Cascadian Republican Starcraft Rio Grande, upon spying the little piece of DirtCom ass directly below his twelve machines, all of them firing 50s right at her, the squatter, not having the stomach for a knife fight—like all the rest of them—running in and out of hyperspace, Rabwin screaming for his guys to “pile on that little Juanita and fuckin’ fill that ta—shit!”

Goddamn Sky Pilot’s stupid ass!

“Break, break, break, goddamnit!” shouted Rabwin to his surviving pilots, at the same time he upcycled Eve Of Destruction, along with Lancer and Rocketpunk, all three of them right on the tail of that tight-ass goddamn littlebulldyker and her assault shuttle.

Ain’t a goddamn one of ‘em worth shit in combat, no matter how much IH the political generals and the femnazis running roughshod in the fucking Senate tried to cram down his throat.

Oh, yeah.

Master Mace Whiskey and Wild Card overshot, then turned into the little squatter’s twelve o’clock; they were gonna gang up on that bitch way they’d ganged up on that tight-ass little Diana Shawnk after she’d compounded her audacity by telling the Hammer she wasn’t opening her legs for him or for any other motherfucker, that she wanted to slurp up that little bitch Marilyn Issacs and fucking call th—

Jesus fucking toast!

Rabwin was fighting his ship for control, alarms by the bushel screaming in his helmet, the windscreen shattering into a billion pieces, sparks all over the place, both holodisplays flickering underneath his gauntlets, the veteran Cascadian Republican Aerospace Force major unpleasantly reminded of fifteen years ago, when the frigate he’d commanded had hyperrammed the RUS Roy Perdue ten klicks above Nuevos Los Angeles, on Vulcan, fireball that could be seen all across the planet, all those Yankers and most of his own crew killed, the same fucking political generals that had let his father be taken prisoner by the Commies during the last Interstellar War busting him all the way down from starcraft commander to captain, even though it had clearly been the femnazis’ fault for lowering the training standards to the point where El Presidio’s halfwitted excuse for an FO couldn’t even plot a simple vector through hyperspac; that was why they’d lost the last two wars to begin with, though the political generals would court martial anyone with the guts to tell the truth in a second.

Goddamn RCS thrusters weren’t firing...and, both the Alcubierre jenny and the torch were off line, the Hammer looking out of the corner of his eye to see Master Mace Whiskey’s and Wild Card’s birds plummeting towards the surface of the planet, both pilots floating in the air, using their VT harnesses to make a safe descent to the ground; he couldn’t see either Lancer or Rocketpunk, couldn’t see much of anything now, except the city of Telfair spinning below and getting closer to him by the second.

Pressing the red button on the center buckle of his straps as hard as he could, Rabwin floated up out of his wrecked fightercraft, his suit’s integral VT harness moving him away as it slammed into the top of a skyscraper at 20.2kips.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:20:14 ZULU

“ I tell you what, Nick,” Sergeant Major Curtis Diers of the Excelsior Security Service said, as he stood guard at the foot of one of the transportal stages leading from the Hartsfield staging area to the mine,” we oughta send every fuckin’ warbird we got and pound ‘em fuckin’ bitches back beyond the motherfuckin’ Stone Age.”

“Damn skippy,” Corporal Nicklas Montgomery replied, shifting the weight of his California-Winchester M32A4 13mm heavy massdriver from his right shoulder to his left.“ Zellner’s finally wisin’ up, even if it was almost a moment too late.”

” ‘Bout time bitch did a man’s job,“ he added, Curtis replying with a ”damn skippy“ of his own, as he ejected and replaced his Palmer/Walker Slammer’s three box magazines, adding:

”Like I been sayin’ all along, there can’t be no goddamn peacekeepin’ when there ain’t no peace to keep in the first place, not when them bitches are all out to get us.”

“It’s all their goddamn fault ,“ Nick said, counting off on his fingers as he added,” first they take away our Sovereign Franchise, then they bitch, ‘cause Zellner’s makin’ his secretary give him head, then they fuckin’ protest anything which even hints at Chrisdent morality right off the goddamn Net, then they come in, take over our tradocs, force us to give ‛em our hard-earned money to fund more arts and women’s studies courses, an’ fuckin’ bulldykers teachin’ everyone it’s perfectly fine for Jimmy to wear a fuckin’ skirt and for Heather to have two mommies fuckin’ slurpin’ each other up in the goddamn bathroom at the Chik n’ Head.

All this goddamn intellectual honesty an’ affirmative action bullshit, fuckin’ takin’ the place of hard work, fair play and Chrisdent values, and then, they have the goddamn nerve to bitch about society goin’ to Hell in handbasket.”

That’s what they’re out to do you know—they can’t be men, so we can’t be men either. They’ll turn us all into bitches and whores like them, unless we kill ‘em first, fuck ‘em and kill every goddamn one of ‘em.“

That’s the fuckin’ problem right there, we’ve misplaced our dicks, or we let them make us ashamed that we even fuckin’ have dicks, and just look what happens, look what happens, people killin’ each other over sneakers and goddamn fucking hot dogs for ‘em to shove in each others’ assholes, somebody’s ride gettin’ jacked in broad fuckin’ daylight every time you turn around, bitches forgettin’ they are bitches, goin’ out and fuckin’ other bitches, killing, looting, doin’ every goddamn chemical they can get their fuckin’ hands on, God only knows what else; Alfred Mann was right, you know, things just ain’t what they used to be.“

”Hell, naw,“ Curtis agreed.”When I was little, my daddy wouldn’t think twice about takin’ the belt to my ass when I fucked up; did me good.

Naw, some meddlin’ goddamn snowflake little bitches have to go and call it child abuse, an’ have you thrown in lockdown just for teachin’ your kids—an’ your bitches—right from wrong.“

“You damn skippy,” Nick said.” Was a hell of a lot better back in the day; now, you can’t even say ‘boo’ to one of ‘em, without the bitch hollerin’ rape like it ain’t what they fuckin’ wanted in the first goddamn place, and the courts are so fucked up now, they’ll believe anything one of them’s got to say.“

”Damn skippy,“ Curtis said, as the transportals started heating up and both the AFEG cops and their fellow Excelsior security contractors came through the staging area doors, whipping the next shift towards the stages, ” bitches damn sure knew their fuckin’ places back in the day, before the radfems came up in our Kool-Aid and started kickin’ up shit.“

“Ain’t got no goddamn shame,” Nick observed, eyes narrowing as he and Curtis both watched the goddamn little howlers, chained, collared, some of them actually wearing grey G-string panties not leaving a fucking thing to the imagination, fewer still wearing tight, grey tank tops as well; most of the skanks, though, had it all hanging out for every motherfucker to see, and, goddamn, did they ever fuckin’ stink, ain’t one of ‘em bitches even bothered to fucking ba—

“Uh, oh,” Nick said, drawing Curtis’ attention to a little blonde bitch near the back, quickly looking over her shoulder to some other fucking whore, so fucking stupid as to think no one would fucking see her do that shit.

“What the fuck you lookin’ at her fo’, huh, bitch?!” a red-headed orangutan-looking motherfucker in AFEG Police camo blues screamed, as he jerked that little howler out of the line, stomped her into the floor, tore them panties right off her fat fucking ass, and started whaling on it with his nerve baton.

“Huh?!” the AFEG demanded, kicking her ass before shoving his regulator all the way up in that shit, the little howler true to her nature, screaming as she twitched, pissed, shit and bled all over herself, the little bitch she’d been looking at trying to run to her, a couple of Xboys jumping on her, forcing her face down onto the tile and her stinking ass up in the air, one of them, Chad Dingelberry, balling his right hand up into a fist, as Curtis commented,”I know a couple of bad lil’ girlies who are goin’ to the Bro—”

The veteran Excelsior Security Service supervisor taking Jesus’ name in vain, as a veritable firestorm of bomb-pumped gras flew past him and Nick, Curtis turning round that instant, bringing his tribarrelled 20mm heavy massdriver to bear on some squat toadstool of an bulldyker blazing away with an SPAM130.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:23:21 ZULU

Sergeant Major Harriet Mangione effortlessly exploded the two Excelsior icewarriors with her SPAM130, the the ten-stone, 147cm tall woman screaming her head off, as she disintegrated the AFEG cop shoving his nerve baton into a woman he’d kept stomped down on the floor, three more 13cm BPG warheads flying out of her superheating weapon towards the two Excelsior Security thugs beating another woman down right beside her, neither of the sumbitches having anything remotely resembling a chance.

Which suited Unbroken’s Starmarine commander just fine.

Drac seen too much of their type to even care if his troop sergeant major single-handedly sprayed every one of those bonesmokers all over as much of Twice-Born, as their blood and grease could cover, Drac, having just led Unbroken's 1 Troop through a telegate focus directly opposite Harriet’s, helped her best he could, walking his HMD across the stage, sending Yankers and Twice-Borns alike to the Hell that was too fucking good for their sorry asses, the women they’d been about to whip through the gates and into the mines hitting the deck and trying very, very hard to merge with it for as long as the firefight above their heads raged on.

Firefight didn’t rage on for too much longer, not with blue-hot fire raining down on the enemy from multiple telegate stages smearing Yankers and AFEGs all over the deck, before they had the chance to gather their wits and return fire.

“Gott in Himmel,” he heard someone whisper from directly behind him, the squadron’s Starmarine commander turning to the chief surgeon from one of the Red Cross medships which had accompanied STANSTARFOR5 to this frozen shithole.

before stepping off the telegate stage, and walking towards where a door had once stood.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:26:15 ZULU

“Zero-survival in effect,” a monotone boomed over the speakers, the white-tile hallway lit up with blood-red lighting,”I say again, zero-survival in effect.”

“Yeah,” Jay Todman heard his old friend from a war too many say over his link, as he walked his white-hot HMD13 across the main staging area’s central corridor, charging the Yankers and AFEGs at the same time he was blowing them up,”I got your fuckin’ zero survival right here, monkeybone, right fuckin’ here!”

Eleven hundred ninety-nine other Commonwealth Starmarines shared their OC’s sentiments, no hesitation in any of them as they went for the sons of bitches doing their damndest to carry out their orders on the women...girls...goddamn fucking little babies...they had chained, collared, whipped, beaten and nerve tortured into submission, all of them trying to plead for their lives as they cowered on the fucking deck, not really expecting any mercy from anyone.

Too many were already beyond any help their would-be saviors might be able to give them; the lucky ones merely had their throats slashed open...sons of...

With a scream coming from God knows where, the veteran FedNewsNet reporter used the butt of his Midnight Sun Arms M2166 heavy massdriver to bash in the skull of an AFEG cop wrapping a monowire garrote round his intended victim, using it as leverage to shove himself into her, Jay driving the butt of his weapon into the sorry bastard’s face again for good measure, and, one more time after that on general principles, stepping on the bastard’s neck , drawing his M2140 massdriver pistol with his right hand while gripping the rifle with his left, opening fire with both weapons at once, charging the enemy in front of him, pistolwhipping and riflebutting the ones too close to shoot, his plant’s onboard cam livestreaming everything.

“Fan out!” Drac shouted in his head.”A company of Starmarines through each door! Fuckin’ moovee!”

Jay moved, following Unbroken’s Starmarines, the door of thirty-meter superconducting TDU and MHD shielding only a minor obstacle to the SPAM130s; 100 Commies and one Mid then poured through the still-smoking hole, Harriet Mangione and her command section’s other gunner —a sixteen year old leading starcraftman by the name of Nikita Branch—leading their way, the others following without hesitation, adding their firepower to the devastation wrought by two Soldier-Portable Artillery Massdrivers spitting out six 130mm BPG warheads per second, the Excelsior and AFEG icewarriors having to leave off the task of murdering their victims—almost all of them clad in grotesqueries of leather and lace—to return their enemy’s fire.

The two steroid monkeys guarding the garishly-lit, pink-tiled room of the PUSSY GALORE!!finally got it into their Neanderthal skulls to raise their tribarrels and attempt resistance, but not before Jay took both of them down, the Mid reporter now leading the way, crashing the door down, all of them storming into the main part of the club, startling the male patrons into stampeding for the nearest exit, at the same time the club’s assortment of bouncers, breakers, dops, bartenders and other turds either went for their guns or for the stages and cages scattered throughout the club, the she-he-its already performing in the cages wrapping garrotes round their victims’ throats.

They didn’t leave a goddamn one of them wiggling, PDMDs, HMDs, SPAM130s, and Jay’s pair of weapons all opening fire as one, a storm front of detonations and electric blue hot gras which sprayed patron, dop, bouncer, breaker and ‘tender alike all over the neon and holoproj-covered, pink -painted walls and floor, the inmates of this place all pressing themselves into the floor, whimpering, screaming, praying to a G.F. Carpathia who not only didn’t care about them, but wanted to see them dead, for that was the God of Christdentity, a God that hated even his own anointed fucking master race.

Those women and girls were the only ones still alive, when the mags in both of his weapons ejected themselves, spent, white-hot and clattering, onto the floor, and the rage finally drained away, leaving behind revulsion and regret.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:30:00 ZULU

“Sir!” Captain Wilma Fulmer, fire-control officer of the Midnight Sun Federal Aerospace Craft Antares, reported, amidst yet another explosion shuddering through the command and control center,“Telegate targeting beacons coming on line throughout Telfair, targeting signals are strong and steady!”

“Reinforce the MHDs,” Coloniel John Keller, Antares’ starcraft commander andcommanding officer of the 1487th Destroyer Squadron, shouted, the only order he could give under the circumstances,”continue firing!”

Major Annmarie Carstairs, the Antares’ first officer, cycled her 14,523-ton destroyer in and out of hyperspace, plowing right through the middle of two, three squadrons of Yanker heavies, John’s fico banging away with the battered Mid frigate’s six remaining 203s, vectoring some of Antares’ Raven AKVs in for added firepower.

John had promised himself never again, not after everything he’d seen during IW1, which he’d so stupidly thought was the one that ended all wars; he couldn’t even escape it by digging in the dirt and trying to bring life to where none existed, they wouldn’t fucking let him, too many of in his charge had to pay the price, and too many more after that in twenty bloody years of another interstellar war which should’ve ended all wars.

His brother, already dragging too much pain behind him, had to be one his people had called upon to lead them and their Senate through the worst of it, the liberation of Avalon, Mont Noir, fucking bloody Habitat itself, IW2’s final, most vicious act finding Jay standing on the Mintaka’s comcon, helpless to prevent the outright slaughter of so many on both sides.

The straps holding him securely to his command conn threw him forward and back, hard, into his seat, the commander of the Antares reminding himself he hadn’t the time for regrets, not right now; in the flickering master holoproj, he watched his flagship come in close and pound the living shit out of a Yanker heavy, his Preads fastening on to the Antares in turn and not letting go, not even after their mother ship fell gored and dying out of the sky to slam into the frigid surface of the planet below.

His wounded bird shook again.

Not from a hit this time, he knew the difference only too well.

“Sir,” Wilma shouted, 203s racing past Antares to bring down most of her surviving antagonists,”seventy Raptor AKVsand a single Dauntless-class frigate have joined battle with us!”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:33:22 ZULU

“Guns, Shooter, Countermeasures, get ‛em the fuck off that Middie warbird!” Jami shouted over comms, Claudia vectoring 50s against the inbound Preds, while Stevie and Marisa vectored 203s from the Raptors in flight and Unbroken’s seven working primary massdrivers—eight working primary massdrivers, Ariel and her team having brought Bravo Four back on line—toward the six Yanker heavies still in it

Comcon shook itself apart all round her, Unbroken’s starship engineering officer rattling off damage and status, while her helmsman drove them headlong and relentless into the ranks of the enemy, two more Columbia-class heavies falling apart before the eyes of Unbroken’s skipper, eyes locked onto the flickering master holoproj, watching her frigate’s 50s, having cleared away the Preds menacing that Mid destroyer, rain more fire down upon even more hostile starfighters closing them.

Micki cycled them repeatedly in and out of hyperspace and across the sky, eleven klicks above Telfair, around all those 50s and 203s headed for Unbroken, Stevie’s Raptors getting inside the guns of one of those heavies, and letting loose a salvo which obliterated the forward saucer, screaming at the same time,”Statesman and Tactician joining battle!”

“A second Mid’s also coming to the party, Skipper,” Senior Lieutenant Michiko Fujiwara sang out, another heavy going down, all of Unbroken’s 203s back on line now,”alongwith a squadron of Ozzie Wu-Lungs!”

Jami saw them all, the Ozzies, the second Middie bird—the pattern on her black-painted fuselage clearly marking her as the Rasalgethi, the one who’d challenged her over Mont Noir—and her flightmates, Phil Wallace’s Statesman and Cat Rhoads’ Tactician, all coming in, guns blazing, AKVs and fighters streaking towards one another at 210 kilokips, all of them upcycling, trying to outmanuver one another, Unbroken doing the same, downcycling on the ass end of one of the Ozzies, her 203s smashing him to bits as he tried to upcycle and evade, tachyon-emission patterns all over the sky now, more enemy and friendly machines joining battle, Michiko shouting,”Zed! Hour!” in her Skipper’s plant.

” Main force in transit, Skipper,” Claudia reported, even as she swept aside hostile starfighters with the 50s and the MHD beam arrays.”One kiloklick above Telfair and closing rapidly, allied troops—”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:35:00 ZULU

“—porting in all over Hartsfield,” Telfair’s startown and sin district, the commander of the Alliance For Ethical Government’s 31st Army continuing to scream,”and the downport, we’re being overrun, police, SI2 and Excelsior Security personnel unable to carry out zero-survival protocols, repeat, police—”

Two BOOOOOM!s, one from the other end of the comm, the other from within the Telfair City Hall itself, knocked the commander of the 31st Army offline, David Arnold Griswold, rightful President of the Timocratic Republic of Twice-Born, shaking as he sat behind the antique red leather and cherrywood desk in his office, the mayor of Telfair acutely aware of a warm, wet sensation down in the crotch of his expensive herringbone khaki slacks.

Tomas would know what to do, he always knew what to do, he did 56 years ago, after all the votes had come in , and it had been blatantly obvious they had wanted neither of them to be President, in spite of both Tomas and Roger Tarrant both promising the Presidency would be his, no doubt of it, once all that recall nonsense was over and done with.

He wasn’t afraid, men were never afraid, not like those goddamn little howlers, scared of everything and everyone different from them, willing to kill those who were guilty only of being alive and remaining so long after their subhuman kind had passed unremembered from this world and every other.

He wasn’t afraid, not at all, for fifty-eight seasons he had been Thomas Sullivan “Tomcat” Hawke, the hero of the series Star Trek JAG, rising in spite of all his enemies, from a mere captain in the JAG Corps all the way to Commanding General of the Federation Armed Forces in the six-hour series finale, he was not afraid.

Not afraid at all; he just so desperately wished his man were here, instead of on Terranova; he would know what to do, things would have to go to hell when he was offworld, no way would he have let those miserable Avalon skanks onto his home soil to tell everyone what was really—

Jesus Holy Christ, was that close!

Griswold found himself hiding under his desk now, not because he was scared, he wasn’t like them, he was General Jock MacGuyver, the hero of the SyFy series Star TrekSG-1, recent winner of the Hugo for best dramatic presenation, and the Emmy for best dramatic series—something you’d never thought a sci-fi series could do in a million years—he just wanted his man to be here, right now, to unscrew what those idiot Yankers had screwed up, when they’d shown details of their ops here, a gross violation of policy, and that damned Zellner no better, nothing at all like his fathers, always opting for the most violent end to accomplish his means, just like one of—

WHA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

The mayor of Telfair heard too many things breaking in his office, too many priceless things, like Frazetta’s last work, his Xena, 262 years old , far more valuable than that other painting, the one of the bitch with no eyebrows Tomas had once told him about, had ever been, the frame itself had been worth over five kays cool silver, the pic itself—of a naked, whipped Gabrielle, blood just dripping from the welts on her creamy white ass down the backs of her legs, licking out her Lady Xena—near priceless since Bernie Sanders had had it banned during the late 2020s, because it showed those animals for what they really w—

Motherfuck!

The picture window behind him exploded into a trillion pieces, most of them falling onto the street below, the lights flickering before finally expiring altogether, the rightful President of Twice-Born, star of Star TrekJAG and Star TrekSG-1, just recently cast as Konrad “Duke” Hauser in Star TrekGI Joe XVII: Zarana’s Amazons, set for a Christmas release, curled up underneath his desk, knees to his chin, ears pricking up at the sound of gunfire inside City Hall...and right below him.

He shook; always too goddamn cold on this miserable planet, that and he so desperately missed his man.

Tomas would know what to do.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:38:10 ZULU

“He’s served his purpose,” Tomas Carerra, President of the Timocratic Republic of Twice-Born, said to the holoimage of his Vice-President, Patrick Kratman.

Without even an instant’s hesitation, he added:

“Throw him to the wolves, Patricio.”

“Yes, sir,” Kratman said, all too eager to obey that order.

“They’ve taken the downport and virtually all of Hartsfield,” he then said, amidst the sounds of weapons fire on his end. “I’ve given the order for all essential personnel to evacuate the City Hall and port themselves to Cadwell; everyone else will continue defending the building and him until the end.”

“Under no circumstances,” Carerra said,” are you to concede Telfair to them.”

“That is not my intention, sir,” Kratman replied. “I have to go now, those Avalon bulldykers are breaking through our defenses quicker than we figured. Discomming.”

Kratman’s swarthy face disappeared from the center of the Hilton Head Island Resort’s conference table.

“You,” Theodore Krantz, State President of Cascadia, had the nerve to say to him,”could simply blow Telfair up like you did Zellnersboro; that is your preferred method of solving problems, isn’t—”

He shut his mouth quick when he found himself staring down the barrel of Zellner’s California Winchester M2149 massdriver pistol.

“Yeah,” replied the Governor of the Union.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“I don’t see any of you dumb bastards coming up with any alternatives,” he added, holstering his weapon.

“Reinforcements,” he added,” are on the way, from Tallmand, New Indiana, Zellner’s World and the few other colonies their fuckin’ JMC hadn’t thought to blockade yet.”

“We are all in a similar situation, it seems,” Samuel Charles Bush, President of New Liberia, observed blackly. “My Prime Minister has informed me that Uhuru Federation and Carribean Coalition frigates and troops have established a blockade station in the Buchannan, New Monrovia and Trumpsport orbital-approach corridors.”

“All of Sakura’s the same way,” Saigo-sama Hideoshi, Shogun of Sakura, said.

“As is Nova Virginia,” Drake said, sighing as he shook his head. “The Viceroy commed personally to tell me the bad news, both the Hampton and Richmond Two corridors are locked tighter than a virgin’s boghole; all our assets based on Scarlet, however, are on the way to TB in an effort to stop the JMC intervention.”

“As,” that miserable excuse for a father spoke up,” are all our forces based at Pegrim, Royal Fortune and Enoch’s World; everything else is out, for now.”

“All available Islamic forces,” Caliph Harun al-Rashid Dimetry, leader of the Islamic Empire, spoke up,” are also en route from Arafat and Boumedienne to Twice-Born; both Salisbury and Hassan el-Sabah are under blockade.”

“Needless to say,” the Prophet Norris Romney, temporal and spiritual ruler of the State Of Deseret, said,”we can’t lift ship one from this godforsaken place.”

“I thank you to watch—” the true Israel started to say, that bastard father of his cutting him off with a “oh, do sod off, won’t you, little Guy?”

“Bitch,” spat the Governor of the Union, his face burning as he shot up out of his chair,”why don’t you fuckin’ sod off?! You ain’t got a goddamnthing to say to me, or anyone else in this fuckin’ room, not after you—”

The ugly goddamn little wetback bonesmoker was all-too-quick to leap to her bitch’s defense:

“You have failed to prove Roger commited any act treasonous to his genetalia and the W—”

“I got plenty of proof,” his Governor countered,”only you stupid bonesmokers don’t wanna pull your pointed little heads outta each other’s assholes long enough to fuckin’ listen to what I got to say!”

“The pot calling the kettle black,” Daddy fucking dearest had the gall to say, the Governor of the Union coming round the table, ready to beat that treasonous fucking whore excuse for a man down like the bitch he was.

Only to have the so-called President of the Secret, Supreme, Exalted High Trailer Park Of the Fucking Rednecks, stop him midway by daring to put his black fucking hand on his chest.

“Theodore is correct,” Rashad Malcolm Muhammed then said to him. “You have insufficent proof of your accusations against Roger.”

“He’s convinced me,” Drake surprised the shit out of Zellner by saying.

“And me,” Carerra said.

“And me as well,” Harrison Braidwood, President of the Board of Supervisors of the California Free State, said.

“Und mir auch,” Leopold Eichmann, Fürher of the Deutschesnationalsocialismusbund, said, another shock to the Governor of the Union.

“Incoming orbital fire, danger close!” Drac shouted to his people, as ten 203-millimeter bomb-pumped graser warheads rained down from an orbiting Canoness ortillery platform on the enemy MAPs and their fire-control vehicle, obliterating them before they could fire on the allied troops attempting to secure Telfair’s startown, 3/1 Troop’s Master Petty Officer Jolene Craig-Krebs’ voice snapping out the word,”Sir!” in his head, the veteran Starmarine commander spotting the squad of AFEG standard infantry moving through the shot-up remains of a Chik n’ Waffle situated in a median island between west and eastbound lanes.

Drac also saw what—who—those A Fuck sons of bitches were after.

She was barely twenty, half-shuffling in a daze across the ten eastbound lanes, her black slacks torn open, falling down to her ankles...she kept pulling them back up, trying to fasten them, of course, not succeeding...blood running down the insides of her thighs...left foot bare, right foot wearing a black shoe with a heel way too high for comfort...pinstriped grey blouse torn completely open.

Six of those AFEG assholes were dead before Drac had even thought to close the triggering circuit, his HMD smoking, as it flung an expended mag violentlly away from the weapon, Drac quickly reloading, the two remaining AFEGs leaving off the young woman they’d just finished raping, turning their M32A4s on Drac.

Jolene spraying both of them all over the ferrocrete before they had a chance to fire, 3/1 Troop’s designated corpsman, Leading Corpsman Espirit Cusack, breaking cover, running over to the girl, half leading, half pulling her to the rest of 1 Troop’s five sections, trying to get her to say something, focus on something other than the faraway place her dark brown eyes were currently zeroed in on, as she examined her, confirming what she and the others already knew.

Drac got on the line to one of the medships upside, calling for a “special delivery, no hands, 1674.4, 4352.4” in Commonwealth Shorthand.

“Copy, Red Horse Troop Six,” the MedCorps officer on the other end of the link replied. “Stay put, we’re on the way.”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:46:08 ZULU

“We might be coming in a little on the warm side, though,” Pilot Major Julie Marie Ethridge added, jinking and burning her Nightengale HC.20 casevac shuttle, the twin nose-mounted 50s banging away in reply to all those MAPs zeroing in on her little bird and its ten-person casevac team, trying their damndest to blow them away, before they could reach the young woman Unbroken's Starmarines wanted extracted from the kill zone.

“Get ready,” she said to the rest of her team via plant, dropping down to bare centimeters, as she closed the Starmarines’ coordinates, firing up the MHD beam emitters on the belly, Solarian Commonwealth Casevac Vehicle Dove shaking violentlly as gras slammed into her MHD shielding from way too many directions at once, alarms screaming in the twenty-three year old casevac pilot’s head; worst damned part of the whole operation, she had to stay absolutely still in order to pull her prospective patient up into the Nightengale’s meddeck, making it all that much easier for the enemy to—

Motherfuck!

Alarms by the dozen were screaming at her, Julie Marie feeding more of the output from the Dove’s reactor into the rapidly-failing shielding, the MHD beam’s targeting radar finally locking onto the woman, the beam itself adjusting so it would pull her up without tearing her to shreds, it being between fifty and a hundred years before the voice of her team leader and twin sister, Senior Lieutenant Bailey Melissa Ethridge, said,” Gem, we got her.”

“Getting us the fuck out of Dodge,” Julie Marie replied, a thought boosting the ship to 20.1kips, and upcycing Dove’s Rittermark jenny.

Or, it would have, if the Rittermark generator hadn’t been knocked offline.

“Fuck, all right, new sodding plan,” Julie Marie said, pushing the plasma-core torch for all it was worth.

Praying to the Goddess and the living Force it was enough.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:47:18 ZULU

“Nail that Commie bitch!” Chief Master Sergeant Ronnie Trawick barked to the air-combat management operator of his HAV-646A4 mechanized artillery platform, eyes fixed onto the Commie Forces medevac shuttle bracketed by crosshairs and unable to do one fucking thing about it, smiling as he said to Chief Master Sergeant Robert Lee Herman,“the advanced artificial intelligence network of the A4 is capable of discriminating between over ten million targets at one time, and, based on the information in its database, determine which ones need to be taken out, on a priority basis, select their weak spots—”

”In other words,” the host of the popular Viacom HV series Mail Call, remarked,“this lil’ honey’s can really put one hell of a hurtin’ on the bad guys.” .

“Got all the modern conveniences too, I see,” Chief Herman said, his eye drifting over to the HV and the murdering bitch of a Communist agent beating down Major Sarah “Butch” MacKenzie, stripping her naked, groping her, slapping her ass and telling her “bitch, where, you’re goin’, women don’t fuckin’ talk back,” just before tying her up—with her legs wide open—in one of the chairs on the Reprisal’s body-strewn bridge, her Commie dommies, circling the Olympus-class super-heavy cruiser like a pack of wild dogs, an ace from boarding the flagship of the Pleiades Command—now under the control of his shipnet, which the Commie op, taking the place of Reprisal’s murdered countermeasures officer, had corrupted—when Tomcat Hawke stormed onto the deck single-handed and put a boot in that bitch’s stinking fucking ass with a quickness, ‘cause that was the way they did things on T-nova, old Tomcat then echoing a single command via plant to regain control of the Reprisal just in time to smash all those DirtCom warbirds into tiny blue sparks falling down out of the sky.

Like he was about to do to that little DirtCom bulldyker so desperately trying to escape what she had coming to her.

“Step out!” Trawick ordered the ACMO, the senior starman not hesitating to do what he was told, Chief Herman sitting down in the chair, a thought from his plant to the fire-control station vectoring sixty shots from the A4’s six radar-guided 203s at the medevac bird somehow managing to bounce all of them off her ass end, in spite of the damage she’d taken, Trawick commenting,“ the system’s very easy to operate, sir, the radar, lidar, darva, and ESI sensors track the target, the fire-control telemetry’s updated by the battery FCV every three and a half seconds, the crosshairs will light up round your tar—”

Trawick trying hard not to say the f-word live on the fucking Net when he saw a DirtCom frigate pouncing on his HAV like a tiger bird on a Satan’s helper , Herman commenting,“seems like we got ourselves a little problem here.”

“The HAV-646A4,” Trawick replied, reciting the defense contractor’s 256-bit true color brochure word for word,“has a state-of-the-art, computer-controlled magneto-hydrodynamic shielding system controlled by a DellMicro 8500 series combat artificial intelligence network, equipped with over 800 Pentium 5000 micromultiprocessor chips working in parallel; the system employs what we call an ‘intellegent zone d—’”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:50:59 ZULU

“Next time,” Jami whispered, as a 31.96kT gras from a 203 smashed that MAP into the planet,” pick on someone your own size, you prick.”

“Leftenant—” the commander of the Unbroken started to ask, switching her attention to that Nightengale struggling to stay aloft, Michiko telling her what she pretty much already knew:

“Intercept vector, Number One; Countermeasures, stand by MHD beams for snaring and towing. Guns, Shooter target anything even thinking of acquiring that Nightengale, and send it straight to Hell! Get some more Raptors in the air for s—”

“Skipper” Claudia said,”I don’t think I need to remind you that our MHD beam emitters, on all sides, are still under repair.”

“I know, baby,” Jami whispered, her frigate shaking from another hit.

“Statesman, Tactician,” she said, “on me, now!”

”Med , Actual,” Jami then said over comms.” I need y’all at the ventral payload hatch; Drives, all available power to MHDs.”

“Unbroken, Ugly Duckling,” Ree Moseley’s holo then said, as it appeared six inches in front of Jami’s right eye,”moving to intercept the Nightengale—”

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 23:53:44 ZULU

“—but I can use some covering fire,” Ree finished, even as she splashed all the Redneck Grey Ghosts, without a shot fired in return, and closed the rapidly plummeting casevac shuttle.

The Skipper simply nodded her head in reply, Unbroken’s 50s, 203s, and Raptors pounding the shit out of everything gunning for the Nightengale, Predator and Harm starfighters coming at her, their 50s and AKVs already shifting the frigate’s port and starboard shielding up the spectrum towards black, the shielding in turn, clearing that rainbow from both sides, as the reactor fed it as much power as it could give without burning itself out.

“Hold on in there!” Ree shouted over comms, as, with the assistance of her own ventral MHD beam emitters, Ugly Duckling docked ventral to dorsal with the stricken casevac shuttle.

“Right! Shift your arses, if you wanna live!” Ree snapped, vectoring her Raptors in against the inbound Preds and Harms.”I haven’t all sodding day!”

It was between ten and twenty years, before the casevac team leader reported “We’re all aboard and secured, Master Pilot.”

“Grand,” Ree replied, cutting the dead Nightengale loose to be consumed by 50s, as she turned, burned hard, and matched vectors with Unbroken's ventral launch rails.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:00:00 ZULU

She noticed the massive blaze less than a klick ahead of her, at the same time the stench of burning human flesh assaulted her nose through the filters of her helmet.

And the screams of women and girls assaulted her ears.

“Just why are these overpriveliged white bitches protesting,” some asshole on FaceIIFace snidely asked from someone’s plant,”and what are they protesting about?! It isn’t as if they’re the victims of persistent and omnipresent big—“

Unbroken's troop sarnt major saw a black girl, no more than thirteen—same as her and Hadley’s youngest—bruised, brutalized, sobbing, manhandled by boys and men with the A Fuck Flag, the Burning Bird Flag and either the Birdies’ or the Snakeheads’ mottoes—“DON’T TREAD ON ME!” or “MAKE OUR REPUBLIC GREAT AGAIN!”—emblazoned proudly on their white t-shirts, and festooned with all manner of...Sovereign Franchise...as they got in a last few pinches and gropes, before hurling her into the conflagration in the median ditch between Hartsfield Avenue’s north and southbound lanes.

“What the fuck are you all waiting for?!” Sergeant Major Harriet Mangione screamed over troop tacnet, shocking herself and the forty-nine other women under her command into action. “By the Goddess and the Force, soddin’ kill ‛em all!”

“Wha’ the—“ the fat slob working the fusbeam rifle dumbly started to ask, Harriet firing six shots from her SPAM130, as she ran hell for leather, both blubber and fusbeamer disappearing in a blue-hot flash, while the rest of the sons of bitches gathered round the fire had the presence of mind to turn and fire at the onrushing Solarian Commonwealth Starmarines with every weapon they had to hand, even as more of them disappeared in roars of white-hot light.

Harriet cut more of them down with her next few shots, sweeping 180 degrees of arc with her weapon, as she drove on, blinded by tears and memories of too goddamn many days like this over the course of two decades of another interstellar war and a third of what some cynical prick on the Net got everyone calling the Peace of the fucking Grave.

Except, of course, she bitterly reminded herself, even as she kept on killing bastards and sons of bitches, the graves are meant for us, cause, for those assholes, death is only gain.

She could feel the fire burning now, in spite of her PCD, some thug bodyslamming her, trying to push her into the flames, Harriet ramming the barrel of her weapon into his gut and closing the triggering circuit, bomb-pumped graser warheads flying through the ensuing greasy mist exploding more of his vulgar comrades in arms all over the pavement.

And, it stopped, all but the whimpering and screaming, Unbroken’s 2 Troop standing round the fire, as more would-be sacrifices to the flames cowered and shrank from the Starmarines.

And, too many more went screaming to their deaths, with not a goddamn thing to be done for them.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:23:11 ZULU

“Fucking keep them awayfrom those birds!” Jami shouted over comms, Unbroken and her squadron now one kiloklick over Telfair, tearing into the enemy machines trying to take out the medships, assault transports, mobile shops and ortillery control vehicles serving as a base of operations for the Commonwealth and allied forces trying to liberate this part of Twice-Born.

Unbroken upcycling in pursuit of a six-pack of Ginnie Reginald Drummond-class destroyers(license-built Casshole Vancouvers) attempting to bypass the defending allied warbirds and strike the auxiliaries directly, Micki staying right on their asses, Marisa driving 203s into the sons of bitches, four of them going down, the remaining two turning round and firing the instant their guns came to bear on the battered Solarian Commonwealth frigate.

Before they went up, the Mid destroyer who’d nailed them even more shot to pieces than Jami’s own bird, the commander of the Unbroken catching a glimpse of a man’s severed head in the pincers of a blood-red scopion painted on one black side.

“That’s one I owe you, Antares,” she said over the link, Antares’ skipper—recently the Maggies’ CEO—simply telling her:

“Just partial payment on an outstanding debt, Unbroken.”

“Nothing more than—” he started to add, before darva alarms from both ships interrupted him, Jami screaming for her gunner and AKV controller to open fire on the Yanker Columbia-class heavy cruiser now less than thirty klicks from Unbroken.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:27:21 ZULU

“Fucking kill the goddamn bitch!” Commander John Patrick Malone, master of the RUS Brian P. Kemp, screamed at his fico.

Even as his bridge blew up around him, Malone cursing that fucking little howler at the top of his lungs, Captain Andy Walden starting to give him the litany of fucking disaster before his commanding officer screamed for him to “shut your fuckin’ bonesmoker! Mister Welch, return fire!”

“Sir,” his FO, Colonel Charles Lightfoot, started to give him lip,”our orders—”

“The only fuckin’ orders any motherfucker on this deck has to worry about followin’ are mine, goddamnit!” Malone shrieked, even more of his fucking bridge falling down around him. “Shooter, recall all our Preds, and launch additional King Cobras; have ‘em go at that bitch with everything they got! Mister Bohnnon, reinforce MHBs! Mister Welch, continue firing!”

“Fuck!” Malone interjected, as even more of his deck fell down around him.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:29:15 ZULU

“Fuck,” John swore, as another Yanker Columbia-class warbird scraped over the first one, the bastard launching his Preds and a brace of King Cobras, before he had completely reentered norm.

“Redirect fire against the second enemy warbird,” he said, watching Unbroken and her Raptors savagely going at it with the first Yanker and his Preads and King Cobras,”order our Ravens to do the same. Close the range, FO, get us inside his g—”

Antares’ teardrop spaceframe shuddered from stem to stern, as ten 203s struck her forward shielding at the same time, Katie reporting damage and status...both very bad, the destroyer had lost another of her 203s and the auto-repair system with that strike, the reactor this close to losing containment, and burning out its thermopile, most of the electrics trashed, holes blown through practically the entire bird, casaulties...

“Reinforce MHDs, continue firing!” he replied, all he could say, Annmarie cycling the wounded Midnight Sun Federal Aerospace Force in and out hyperspace, passing directly over the Yanker heavy’s saucer, Antares’ fico driving 203s from the four remaining accelerators through him, even as his fighters and AKVs fell back to try and protect him, the badly-wounded Antares shaking herself to pieces, alarms screaming inside John’s head, the destroyer’s own AKVs coming in to help her out, keep those bastards off her long enough for her to kill that heavy before he harmed any of the auxillaries.

“Skipper!” Lieutenant Shannon Cole screamed, John not needing to hear the rest of what Antares’ AKV control officer had to say to know they might not succeed.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:32:18 ZULU

“Statesman,Tactician,” Senior Captain Lanier’s holo said over comms at the same time the third Yanker heavy started launching King Cobras and Preds toward the auxiliaries and the two allied frigates in their midst,”take that heavy out of my sky, now!”

“Skipper,” Starcraft Captain Mary Catherine Rhoads objected,”you’ve got Preds and King Cobras from the other two—”

“The auxiliaries come first, Cat,” her SOC replied in no uncertain terms, knowing what she was asking the skippers of Statesman and Tactician to do, Jami then telling her shooter to,”tell the Raptors to go in and support ‛em.”

“Shooter,” she added quickly, ”take on the newcomer’s Preds; Statesman, vector your Raptors in against the fighters as well.”

“We’ll deal with the heavy,” she whispered, an instant before Tactician closed the Yanker heavy, and let fly with all her 50s and 203s.

Her bird shook, alarms howling inside her head, the master holoproj aft at an expanding fireball sending bluish-white hot sparks in all directions, bouncing off the shielding of the surrounding auxiliaries, smashing into enemy fighters, taking many of them out, even pelting the asses of the two remaining Columbias, a couple punching through the aft shielding of the one Unbroken was still slugging it out with, doing him some serious harm.

Claudia’s whispered,”I’ll be goddamned,” went for all of them, as they watched that Yanker heavy go up like a nova, flinging bits of himself all over the sky.

It just barely registered with Jami what Cat had just done...she’d executed an upcycle to close that hostile warbird, then vectored a fusillade of 203s at point-blank range, all in less than an eyeblink.

Out loud, she shouted,”we’ve still got work to do!” Stevie almost immediately saying,” that took out most of the enemy’s Preds and War Eagles, Skipper, our own \Raptors are falling back to assist us; Statesman and Tactician are crawling right up that heavy’s tailpipes.”

Pieces of the battleship’s aft hull flew past the Commonwealth Star Force frigate, just as her gunner brutally hammered his forward saucer.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:35:03 ZULU

Malone screamed wordlessly as his ship took it on the jaw and up the ass at the same time, Welch struggling to return the Unbroken’s fire and that of her two flightmates now fastened onto the Kemp’s stern.

The Assemblyman Robert J. Barclay fell out of the sky, a million holes driven into him by that Mid destroyer with Unbroken, the dying heavy cruiser rapidly breaking up as it plummeted meteorically towards earth, crashing somewhere inside the city of Telfair.

Leaving the Antares free to redirect its two remaining 203s and its surviving AKVs against the Kemp’s sixteen remaining Preds...thirteen Predators...from the ship’s starfighter group.

Eight fighters now.

Malone swore under his breath, as he ordered the remaining Predators and King Cobras to cover their mother ship’s retreat.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:37:51 ZULU

“All systems,” Katie reported, “under repair, Skipper. Estimate five minutes before the remaining 203s and the rest of the teritary electrical system are back up, an hour and a half before the drone bay can be repaired enough to land and service our Ravens.”

“Med section,” she then added, John’s eyes on the raging inferno downside the Yanker he’d killed had caused on impact,”has the casualty report, if—”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

The commander of the Antares simply nodding his head in reply, the casualty report in front of him on one of the command holodisplays, his mind on those amongst his people he’d lost, on the God only knew how many people on the ground had died or had been wounded when that Yanker heavy had plowed right into them just now.

On all the blood which had to be spilled on both sides over truths which were supposed to have been self-evident.15 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:07:51 ZULU

The Telfair Metro Law Enforcement Center, headquarters of the Telfair Metropolitian Police—now the AFEG National Police—simply could not have been in a more defensible position than it was now.

From his vantage point atop the Sea Island Bank Building ten blocks away, Drac could see that all too clearly through his suit’s polynoculars.

Checkpoints, complete with massive blocking fields, cut off civilian access entirely to the three streets surrounding it and the AFEG Hall of Justice squatting just behind it at the precise center of Charles W. Bishop Avenue, this little concrete island sporting reefs of 50mm AMDCs in remote-controlled turrets set between ferrocrete, tanc and even more MHD shielding.

The sole entry into the underground parking garage common to both buildings—located below the Detective Division annex on Edwin G. Telfair Street, the other leg of the isocoles triangle—positively bristled with 50mm AMDC emplacements, a company of AFEG Army mech infantry and ten tac units of AFEG cops backing that up, and the toughest MHD shielding in the whole damn place backing them up.

“The locals,” Lieutenant Emily Sykes, sole survivor of the Avalon Military Intelligence op group dropped onto this filthy snowball of a world a week ago, told Dunstan,”call this place the Brokedown Palace; from what I’ve been able to determine, those women considered otherwise incorrigible—”

“By that ,” Harriet Mangione remarked bitterly, “they mean the ones the mines, the clubs in Hartsfield and other assorted sadisms on this miserable block of fucking ice can‘t break.”

“—have the run of the cellblocks,” Emily said.”Those begin at one klick below the surface and run down for I don’t know how deep.”

Drac nodded his head at that, looking back towards the Brokedown Palace—which had begun life as the headquarters arcology for the Excelsior Mining operation established on TB’s Western Hemisphere over ninety years ago—trying to think of a way in there.

He had 1,200 Starmarines and one Mid reporter, none of them armed with anything heavier than SPAM130s, under his command right now, against an unknown number of heavily-armed AFEG cops, supported by at least three full regimental combat teams of mech infantry, their AV-118 panzers buzzing round the AFEG police headquarters like bobblebugs round a jackapple orchard in full bloom, and, possibly another reinforced battalion of horse cavalry, some of whom were manning the checkpoints, the rest patrolling the three streets and the surrounding buildings astride their Bergerons.

“And,” Jay spoke up,”Bradbury’s hounds; those are probably AFEG Army Strikers down there.”

“Better and better,” Drac remarked grimly, watching as MAPs, both anti-aerospace and field artillery, started taking up positions along both Telfair Street, Bishop Avenue and the third leg of the triangle, Pine Street.

“Tunnels just below the place,” Harriet added, Drac now scanning the AFEG comms for any clue as to what was going on in the immediate area,”are also rigged with tripbeams; we go through them—”

“I mean,” she added, Drac looking away from the Brokedown Palace back to Emily,”all the cities on this planet started out as Excelsior base camps built directly above the mines they serviced.”

“And,” Jay said,”the center of Telfair, in which we and the AFEG Police HQ are both standing, is the site of the original Excelsior base around which this city grew.”

Nodding his head, Drac nevertheless posed one serious objection to the entire plan:

“The only mines still in operation in Telfair itself are the ones in Hartsfield and underneath the city’s poorest neighborhoods; the ones running underneath the rest of the city have been sealed off and pumped full of pluto gas at three atmospheres’ pressure for the last five and a half decades.”

“They also,” he added,” happen to be nine and a half klicks below our feet...twelve and a half, counting the three kilometers of arco on which we’re standing.”

“That’s out then,” Jay remarked.

“Maybe not,” Drac replied.

“Maybe not,” he repeated, Emily’s suggestion giving him an idea.

“If Excelsior ran true to form when they set up the original mines,” he said,” there should be a telegate complex five hundred meters above the mine, just as it was with the mines directly underneath those clubs in Hartsfield—”

“Those gates,” Harriet said,”didn’t have any controls on their ends—”

“Just on the gates they were hooked up to, ” Drac said,” no doubt to minimize the chances of escape through them; back in the 2180s, during the early Lightspeed Age, when Excelsior first set up shop on TB, the camp’s assorted sadisms, as you put it, Sarnt Major, were right in this area, probably even in that building we’re trying to crack into; assuming one gate complex serviced all the mines formerly in operation here—”

“Which,” Sarah spoke up,” would make sense, given that telegates were still a new technology at the time, and thus, prohibitively expensive.”

“—and,”Drac finished,”that the complex was at least as big as the one underneath Hartsfield—”

“We’ll secure one of the public gate stations,” Harriet said,” and go in from there.”

“—there weren’t any controls on the gates in the complex under Hartsfield,” Sarah continued to object,” just at the destination gates.”

“Hooked up to them by data cabling,” Petty Officer Megan Ganz, commanding Unbroken’s 3/2 Troop, spoke up,”into which we can splice and hax our way into the AFEG Police HQ’s AI network—”

“Which,” Senior Lieutenant Lillian O’Connell, commanding Tactician’s Starmarines, said,”if it’s the same AI net as was running the Execelsior base, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, given the tendency most corporations and governments have to keep old tech limping along best they can, rather than replace it with new—”

“The system commands for operating the gates,” Lieutenant Colburn Pearce, commanding Unrivalled’s Starmarines, finished,”should still be buried somewhere within the network’s collective memory.”

“Which,” Sarah said,”does no good without power.”

“If it is the same AI net,” Drac said,”and, that’s a pretty big if, and we can hax it—another big if—we can get it to heat up one of the gates.”

“Final problem,” Sarah said. “They’re sure to have thought of all this.”

“That’s the biggest if,” Drac remarked,”of all.”

“It’s also our only plan,” he added.

“Where’s the nearest public gate station?” he asked.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

13) The Cries Of Pain That Echo Through This World“I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor!”—Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:23:46 ZULU

“...Bauer, who Media Committee Security operatives found wandering, in a daze, through the streets of Townshend Village,” said the little slant-eyed piece of pussy on See BS,”following her breakup with comedienne Ellen de Grassi five days ago, last night denied, in an interview with CBS’ Juan Rivera on Eye To Eye, that she was born femperv, in spite of her earlier insistence of her non-Canon sexuality being innate.

Bauer insisted, in fact, that de Grassi, through systematic physical, psychological and femsexual abuse, forced her into the femperv lifestyle.”

The HV in the break room of the Telfair Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Baldwin Street Terminal then dissolved to the little blonde bitch who’d been slurping it up with Ellen Degenerate for the last couple of years, Juliann Bauer telling Juan Rivera:

“—it was only after days, weeks—I lost track of time, so I can’t really say how long it was—of repeated, systematic physical, psychological and sexual abuse that I just broke...she had stripped me as spiritually and emotionally naked as she had physically, taking away every shred of self-worth I had, until she had what she wanted, a bruised lump of flesh, ashamed of myself, grovelling at her feet, begging to be her girl, wanting nothing more in the worlds to be her bitch, and do anything she wanted me to.

I remember sobbing like a baby, when she told me the limited amusements of my naked flesh paled in comparison to the pleasures of being with a man, when she told me that it didn’t matter what I was willing to do for her, because she could take what she wanted from me any time, when she spat on me and walked out of the bedroom, leaving me to lie on the floor, wanting to die, because the one thing she’d made me wish for more than life itself had been denied me.“

“I don’t understand why she would do that, if her intention—” Rivera started to say, Bauer replying:

“You’re a man, Juan, you’re just not wired up like we are; it wasn’t enough for her to have broken me, and make me want to be her girl, she had to keep me broken, keep me down in a state where my needs and wants...where I just didn’t have them anymore, because I had no sense of myself left, that is how she controls and dominates, how she controlled and dominated me.

She left me lying naked, bruised, sobbing and cold on the floor for hours, Juan, stripped even of the desire she put into me to be her sexual slave; she left me in there until she was ready to take me for her own. She came back in there with a pushup bra, a thong, a pair of stockings and some high heels, put them on the bed, echoed a contract of slavery to my plant, and told me to thumb it, pulling me up by my hair onto my knees, after I thumbed it, telling me,’you’re my bitch, not because you want it, but because I fuckin’ want you to want it, get me, lil’ girlie?!’ then telling me,’you will answer, “Yes, Mistress,”’ which I did, just before she forced my face into her crotch and made me—”

“I tellin’ you now,” Sergeant Everett Williams of the Telfair Metro Transit Police shouted in Gregory McDonnell’s ear, distracting him from what that little blonde fuck was telling Rivera,” we mens don’t be bullshittin’ when we say they all freaky-deeks.”

“You’re right about that,” the terminal’s transportal technician replied, hoping to God that would be enough to shut that chimp up.

“I kno’ I right,” Everett replied. “Man, now dese feral, they hook up with each other, an’ with dem Burnie’ Burd and Yanker ho, an’ they be workin’ to screw us mens outta whut we woiked so hard all our lives to get, jes’ by openin’ they legs and hallerin’ ‘discrimination!’

Discrimination, huh...they be the ones discriminatin’ ‘gainst us, stealin’ our jobs, and don’t even wanna be doin’ no dam’ woik...they done shut down Brown n’ Reynolds, fo’ced it right down inda hol’, put all dem folks outta woik, and that whut they aimin’ to do to the rest of us on this goddam’ planet, put us outta woik, make it look like we criminals, we lazy, an’ we rapists, an’ all that really mean is they got bo’ed with our dicks in they assho’es, and they want an excuse to get rid of us.

You kno’ I wuz readin’ this book by this ape primitive who got rescued from the DoitComs...hur name wuz Bambi Wite, and she wrote dis book ’bout a month ago ...whut they do, see, is they have they State Security Buerau kidnap the purtiest lil’ ol’ gurls from all over the worlds , turn ‘em out and train ‘em.

They ain’t got no mo’ mens in they society, despite whut the MedCom be sayin, they done kilt all dem off o’ transitioned ‛em one.

Anyway, this freak was writin’ ‘bout how she started out bein’ the bottom girlie in one of they refem camps, every bitch in the place usin’ her nasty ass fo’ the ho’ dey all are, and she work hur way up the ladder ‘til she was runnin’ the muthafucka, had over ten thousand female under hur doin’ whatever she say do, while she wuz on hur knees and hur back every night, ‘cuz she was the girlie of every fuckin’ girlie in ol’ Dark Angel Jami harem...maan, that book got all the pictures of whut they be doin’; one of ‘em even sho’ hur wearin’ this leather miniskirt straight outta Star Trek...all dem female sho’ do like that Star Trek, ‘cuz it sho’ the kinda world dem female li—”

“Whut the fuck?!” he suddenly said, Greg hearing shouting, cursing and weapons fire from out front.

“That gunfire,” the transit cop then said, even his simian brain able to make the connection after a while, Greg already on his feet, running like a motherfucker for the exit, as the first “A-VENGE!KOHOUTEEEKK!” reached his ears.

The twenty-four year old tech stopping short as the back door flew open, Sullie grey pouring through it like floodwaters through a crack in a dam, Greg turning back around, running down the back hallway, heading back out into the front atrium, ducking, bobbing and weaving his way through DirtCom, transit cops and AFEG mechies all banging away at each other, everyone behind the ticket booth already down on the deck, screaming like bitches as BPG zipped, popped, and sizzled all round them, those who had been getting ready to head for work via transportal, magrail, or bus also lying flat on the floor crying for their mommies like the worthless goddamn civilians they all were.

Just for a second, out the corner of the former Terranovan Republican Starfleeter’s right eye, he could see Everett get hosed all over the tiles of the wall and floor by some mini-Amazon bulldyker pumping 130mm BPG right into his sorry black ass.

Greg had no plans on joining him; he kept running, straight for the public portal, already heated up and focussed on the first of the destinations that Jeff—a goddamn wuss of a fucking soyboi he used to beat the hell out of all the time, when they’d both been stockmen at the Walmart on Watson-MLK years ago—had programmed into the control holodisplay in front of his little pansy self, those already gathered at the stage hauling ass fast as they could through the transportal focus.

He lost his bearings and nearly his balance for just a second, as the fist of Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh Himself delivered a smashing right hook into the glass jaw of this shithole planet, the lights going out long enough for the civvies to scream for their mamas even louder than before.

Long enough for the portal’s AI to announce,”transportal focus lost,attempting to reestablish,” over and over, Greg shoving that useless goddamn little soyboi motherfucker out of his way, interacting with the control holodisplay via plant, locking the portal’s scanners onto the first point in spacetime he could think of, waiting for the Alcubierre jenny to heat up and create a quantum tunnel inside the transportal’s superconducting lathanide arch.

In actual practice, transportals were linked up to one another city and planetwide, each using the transportal targeting systems of the others to establish focus; the focus for this portal was set on the matching portal at the City Hall Terminal a few blocks away, but that was out now, the Avalons must’ve broken through the A Fucks’ defenses there, and succeeded in securing the motherfucker.

These bitches must want this particular transportal to try and crack into the Brokedown Palace, easily the most fortified part of the whole goddamn town, and if their intel had been worth a shit, they would’ve already known you couldn’t port into the sumbitch, the walls were lined with lead, with a layer of supercooled ammonia between the voids, not even darva could scan p—

“Oh, fuck,” he interjected, feeling an icy-cold gun barrel pressing against the base of his skull.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:25:00 ZULU

“No stupidity, “ Commander Draco Selkirk told the tech at the controls, taking the Lil’ Bang 2.5mm holdout massdriver pistol from his back power holster, and flinging it clear of both of them,”hear me?”

“Yeah,” the tech replied.

“What do you want?” he then asked.

“For you to finish establishing focus on that gate,” Drac replied, the 1,200 Solarian Commonwealth Starmarines under his command already moving the civilians towards the stage,”and clear everyone out of here; before you go to the trouble of saying it, we don’t need your cooperation, after you do that, we can take care of it from here once you’re through the gate—”

“Y’all just gonna let me go?” the tech asked, not believing his ears.

“Any reason why I shouldn’t?” Drac asked, at the same time the gate’s control holodisplay indicated that the mathematical conditions on both sides matched one hundred percent, and the focus started to form.

White boy didn’t need to be told twice, joining the queue of people streaming through the rift to whereever the gate’s focus had been set, Drac waiting until they were all through before shutting it down, scanning the holodisplay, trying to find—

Found it, the uplink command staring him right in the face in red underline, the veteran Starmarine officer bringing up the uplink menu, giving him a choice between oribtal telegate relay stations—all of them shot down by Avalon forces during the opening hours of the counterstrike against Twice-Born—Drac instead entering the coordinates of one of the Canoness ortillery platforms now overhead.

Pleasantly surprised when the words UPLINK ESTABLISHEDflashed in green before his eyes, Drac then proceeding to use the Canoness’ own active suite to establish the mathematical conditions for a gate complex that might or might not be nine klicks underneath his feet.

Something was nine klicks underneath his feet, had to be, for not ten minutes after he’d linked up to the Canoness, the words MATHEMATICAL CONDITIONS ESTABLISHED, 100% MATCHflashed green across the holodisplay, the gate heating up, spacetime inside it beginning to shimmer, as it formed a quantum tunnel.

“All right, people,” he shouted over regimental tacnet,”let’s move!”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:27:28 ZULU

“With every town we provide electricity, running water, proper sanitation and good roads,” the holoimage of the rank amateur calling himself Governor of the Union said,”every person we save with modern medicine, every child we can send through training and doctrine, every woman and girl we save from a hell of her own innate femsexual depravity, every step we take towards progress and Sovereignty on Twice-Born and in the Terranovan Homesteads, these killers and cowards grow more desperate, willing to use any and all means necessary to prove that we are failing in our mission, undermine our credibility amongst the people we are so desperately attempting to liberate, people who only want rule of the majority instead of tyranny of the matriarchy.”

David Arnold Griswold, leader of the Alliance for Ethical Government, mayor of Telfair, duly-elected President of the Timocratic Republic of Twice-Born, sat in his police chief’s office, knocking back two-century old Kentucky, watching that idiot Zellner prating onward:

“We are winning the fight against them, let me assure you all of that, we are winning; nothing they can do, no amount of terror and fanaticism on their part, can change that. We drove them from our skies six days ago, we are driving them from our Homesteads and from Twice-Born, we will drive them all before us, and bring them downon their kneesat ourfeet, that is Canon, and they cannot unwrite what Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh Himself has already written.

It shall come to pass.”

“That,” horny little Hannah Donner said, pursing her red-painted cooter lips, as she spoke, and the HV dissolved to the studios of Telenet 424’s Early Morning Show,”were some very strong words on the part of Terranova Governor Guy Zellner; still to come on the Early Morning Show, the new Terranovan Attorney General, Thurbert C. Baker, and several experts in the fields of criminology, evolutionary gyneopsychology, sociology, and social engineering discuss the alarming increase in the number of women being arrested for violent felonies, and how this directly ties in with the postfem culture of the last decade.”

When the little red-headed pussy said that, she crossed her legs, showing off those jackboots she liked to wear, lifting up her short skirt to show the crotch of her sheer, creme-colored T-back, which didn’t leave one fucking thing to the imagination; the radfems had had the upper hand ever since Habitat, and the bitches were now free to dress like whores and strippers, just like they always wanted to to begin with.

Just like the little blonde piece of pussy who’d trapped him into marriage, shaking that nasty little ass, not even hidden underneath her short brown leather miniskirt, her midriff left bare by the white halter top which made her titties look twice bigger than what they were; she bit down on one purple-painted lip as she brought her man his eggs over light, bacon, link sausage, hashbrowns and coffee, laying the tray down on the desk.

He promptly got up out of his chair and threw the entire thing back in her stupid face, screaming, “you fuckin’ expect me to eat this slop?!” backhanding her to the floor, picking up the cup of black coffee, two sugars, dumping it on her, as she just fucking lay there,trying that crying bullshit on him, knowing it didn’t fucking work, the little bitch stammering,”i-it’s the w-way y-you—”

Stomping on her, hesnapped,”bitch, I said I wanted my eggs over light, over fuckin’ light; that doesn’t look like over fuckin’ light to me, fuckin’ things were half burnt, and the goddamn bacon was limp,” he kicked her three times in succession,”and you know damn good and well I fuckin’ can’t stand limp fuckin’ bacon, or greasy goddamn hashbrowns for that matter!”

Grabbing her by her hair, he threw her up against the desk, slamming her face into it, keeping her bent over as he lifted up her skirt, pulled down her fucking panties and started whaling away on that fat ass with his free hand, just like the sick little twitch from Venus said she’d wanted him to do to her last night in chat, like all disobedient goddamn little girlies made their daddies do to them, cause they were stupid, mindless little fuckin’ babies, who needed their goddamn daddies to fuckin’ do their thinking for them.

“Bitch, don’t you dare fuckin’ cry,” he shouted at her, slamming her head into the desk, beating on that nasty ass of hers,”not even tear one, or, by God, I’ll really give you somethin’ to fuckin’ cry about!”

“I damn sure will!” he added, continuing to administer the discipline her miserable goddamn excuse for a brother—Mickey Soyboi fucking Mouse himself—never had the goddamn balls to do to her, when it could’ve actually done some good, finally saying the fuck with this, when his hand started to hurt, balling it up into a fist and shoving it all the way to the elbow up into that shit; Jesus Holy Chirst, you’d have thought she didn’t fuckin’ want that, from all the hollering and carrying on.

He knew better; he might not have had doctorates in military science, social engineering, and evolutionary gyneopsychology like his man did(God, how I wish he were here,now...)but, he’d spent years playing opposite enough of them on the whining femnazi network, trolled the BDSM and forced fem chat rooms every free minute he had, and 99.99% of the ones he ran into in chat were all spoiled-rot goddamn little girlies wanting daddies manenough to make their pussies right, and that included the motherfuckin’ bulldying lickylicks playing daddy to their little girlies, like that bitch had the fucking nerve to try and do to his fucking little girlie.

Animals, every goddamn fucking one of ‘em, nothing but ferals, how dare they even presume they were even close to being on the same motherfucking level as the First-Born goddamned Sons of Adam Yeshua ben motherfuckin’ Yaweh, how dare they!

“Shut it, you licentious goddamn lil’ howler!” he ordered his bitch, as he kept on fisting her and slamming her cooter head into the desk at the same time, pulling on her hair to push himself in deeper.”SHUT IT!”

Finally pulling out of her, looking at his fist, looking down at her, heaving, kicking her ass, telling her:

“God, you are such a fuckin’ bore, you know that! Same goddamn thing every fuckin’ time you make me fuck you!Same goddamn motherfuckin’ thing, and it fuckin’ ain’t shit, not in comparison to the pleasures of being with my man!”

“Sir?!” some dumb bonesmoker of an AFEG cop had the nerve to stand at the office doorway and ask.”Is there—”

Grabbing his bitch by her arm, Griswold threw her into the cop’s gauntleted hands, screaming “fucking take her below, and throw her in one of the tanks, let the fuckin’ bulls use her for what even they fuckin’ know she’s good for, before even they get sick and fuckin’ tired of her sorry ass!”

“Yes, sir,” the cop replied without hesitation, dragging Griswold’s bad, bad little girlie off to get tuned up by her own subhuman kind.

They would make her fucking hate women as much as he did.

That was for damn skippy.

14 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:06:26 ZULU

The gate complex was dark, deserted, musty, falling apart all round them, exactly the way it should look for having been abandoned for almost six decades.

But, just as predicted, it had been there.

Now, if they could get one of the damn things to work and, from there, try to use it to get into the otherwise-inaccessible AFEG Police Headquarters, otherwise known as the Brokedown Palace.

Stunningly original, but hardly surprising, Drac, underneath one of the stages with two of his people, the Avalon intel op who’d given them the heads up and Jay Todman, thought, as he helped recalibrate the gate’s Rittermark jenny, considering the Snakes are being led by some third-rate actor with a second-grade mentality.

Master Petty Officer Jolene-Craig Krebs, tracing the fiber-optic data and power cabling leading from the jenny and the gate’s still-live matter-antimatter reactor, said,”I think we can do it, sir.”

“Agreed,” First Lieutenant Emily Sykes, the Avalon Intelligence op, said, as she continued going over the hafnium-isomer coils leading from the generator to the underside of the arch.

“Coils aren’t in good shape, but they should have enough charge for at least one gate-in,” she said, after a silence, Senior Lieutenant Marla Burney, commanding Turbulent’s Starmarines, then saying,”we may not even have to rely on the AFEGs for power; it just depends on—”

“Too goddamn easy,” he added, the holo telling him the reactor was now on line and powering up the Rittermark jenny.

An entirely new and unexpected series of controls now appeared in a child window on the holodisplay.

“Too easy,” he repeated.

“Sir,” Marla replied,as a menu of possible destinations came up,” it actually makes sense; in case something goes wrong on the other end, and, given enough warning, someone could slip underneath and work it from here; the access panel’s on the stage itself, almost flush with the rest of it, hard to get to while being chained and herded from one place to another—”

“Which,” Drac, looking at the list of destinations, most of them mines and “adult” entertainment clubs either moved out to Hartsfield or no longer in operation, said,”is the only time their inmates would even have been in this complex.”

He found the one he was hoping to find, the wordADMINlit up in green at the bottom of the menu.

Only to have the fucking thing buzz and tell him,”Transportal cannot be operated from this location as long as the stage access panel remains open, for reasons of security. Do you wish to engage automatic operation?”

“Fuck,” Drac interjected, the damn thing telling him that was not a valid passphrase or Personal ID Codestring.

Before telling him he had two more tries to get it right, otherwise the whole damn system would shut down for good.

That, of course, made sense as well, in case the women incarcerated in this hole back in the day did manage to make it down here, and tried to make good their escape; it was a dead cert a woman’s voiceprint would lock it down good(or blow it sky-high) first try, in addition to triggering whatever other automated countermeasures still operational.

Problem was, Drac didn’t know any Excelsior PICs or security passphrases, and the AI had just upped the ante, informing him he had just thirty seconds to say the magic words or it was no dice.

On the keypad in front of him, right next to the zero, a button markedOVERRIDE in harsh red letters.

That one had the AI telling him,”if you are an operative of the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate or any other authorized agent of the Government of the Union, you have ten seconds at the end of this prompt to tell me your name, rank or position, Personal Identification Codestring , and security passphrase; otherwise, press the Exit button now.”

God, if you really are there, give me a sign, and let this work, thought Unbroken’s Starmarine commander, as he accessed his plant’s database, and said, in a passable imitation of his bastard half-brother’s voice:

Crap, Drac thought, forgetting that the fucking thing would do just that, even the best of all possible outcomes still very bad, unless they moved very quickly.

It was a small eternity later when the AI assured him Whore Ass’ credentials were in fact valid and that he would wait thirty seconds for Drac to get up top and close the hatch before firing up the gate.

“Let’s get a move on, y’all!” he shouted, climbing up the ladder back onto the stage, afraid those thirty seconds might just be too fucking long and too goddamn late for those they were hoping to save.

Thanks a lot, Jesus Carpathia, you asshole, he commented silently and bitterly, slamming the hatch closed after the others clambered their way onto the stage, spacetime inside the arch starting to shimmer.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:11:01 ZULU

The Doobie Brothers song played in the background, as images of virile, well-endowed men dressed in designer clothes, mostly jeans, Ray-Bans, flannnels and leather jackets, all of them smoking joints, flashed past in rapid, MHVid-like succession.

The voiceover in the background said:

“There are those out there who want to deny a man his inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.”

With that, an image that tight-assed little black piece of pootang Killer Cyndi McKinley testifying before the House of Commons on the dangers of firing up replaced the image of all the virile men.

“They would do anything to,” the voiceover continued, as that scene played on, freeze-framing on that bitch’s face,“ chip away at the very heart of a man’s Sovereignty, the most precious gift Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh Himself could give His First-Born Sons.

At Brown & Reyonlds, we believe smokers have rights too, and that no minority, no matter how politcally powerful, has any moral right to legislate our enjoyment.

So, to those of you out there who wish to steal our liberty from us, we say this:”

That black cooter’s head was instantly replaced by rapid-fire images of bare-chested beautiful men hiking, riding vintage HD Hog motorcylces down deserted inter-county highways, riding Bergerons bare-chested at a fast gallop along a beach, playing street hockey(also bare-chested), tricking off skyscrapers with g-decks—the soundtrack blasting:

“ ‘I don’t care what they may know/ I don’t care where they may go/ I don’t care what they may know/ Reefer is just all right, oh yeaaaahhhh.’

We are Brown & Reynolds(‛Reeferrr. Is my frieend. Reeferrr is my frieend. It takes me by the hand. Takes me toooo the Promised Land.’), and we will always believe that reefer is just all right.”

Damn straight, thought Terranovan Republican Starfleet Fleet General Paul Meyer, de facto military governor of Twice-Born, officially, the commander of the Federation “peacekeeping” mission sent to help the Burnie Birds and the A Fucks whip up on their ferals, after they all decided they were going to say hell with both Tommy Carerra and his butt boy, and put one of their own in Telfair House.

Damn straight, he thought again, firing up a Doobie Brothers Primo Hydro, the last of the commercials going away, returning him to TMS’ Mornin’ Show, little Carolyn Minh’s pouty red lips forming a nice bonesmoking little O, before she started telling the worlds the story Meyer, in particular, had waited all morning to hear:

”In a sweep of seven housing projects in the city of Fort Hawkins, two hundred kilometers west of the former Twice-Born capital of Zellnersboro, Terranovan soldiers from the Special Operations Ready Regiment of the 27th Shock Army, ably assisted by members of the Cascadian Republican Aerospace Force’s FALCON Team Romeo and the Terranovan Republican Special Forces Command’s elite Task Force 21, uncovered an extensive cache of Commonwealth-manufactured weapons and munitions, including nearly thirty kilotons of plutonium oxide gas, four hundred tons of VX nerve gas, 150 tons of various biological agents, five hundred 130-millimeter man-portable artillery systems, thirty mechanized artillery platforms and at least fifty intact Lynx panzers; the weapons and munitions were to be used in a civil uprising which was to have followed in the wake of yesterday’s suicide bombing of Zellnersboro, according to Terranovan Republican Starfleet Fleet General Paul Meyer, commanding the Federation’s peacekeeping efforts on planet, Fleet General Meyer having personally led last night’s raid, which also netted nearly 500,000 known and convicted radfem and radfem sympathizers, all of whom are alleged to have ties to various offworld subversive organizations.“

Meyer smiled as he watched the ‘cast; nicely done, and the computer enhancement had neatly covered up what Rimmel of Britannica couldn’t, the slant-eyed little piece of ass looking as if she wanted to use her very femininity to lend creedence to what his race had to believe to justify all the necessary actions against their enemies.There he was now, on HV, respledent in his Starfleet dress gold, his Medal Of Honor twinkling in the twilight, talking with another one of them, dressed like the whores they all were, right down to the short blue skirt which didn’t come close to covering her lavender G-string, Meyer telling the worlds:

”—use ‘em on us, sure as hell, Asleigh. Worse, they used some of your own kind as shields, forcing them to throw themselves at us by the thousands, expending our firepower, while their femdommes hung back, and took shots at our boys with virtual impunity.

All you limp-wristed Skywalker Ranch snow-fake liberal media elites can whine about killing innocent civilians all you want, but you just don’t know, or don’t want anyone else to know, none of you, none of you, is exactly what any of us can call innocent, or civilians, for that matter, you’re all out to destroy every decent, good, honest, Canon thing we have built with our blood, our sweat, our labor, because you are all jealous of what you can never hope to achieve in a hundred lifetimes.

I have no problem with ordering our boys to go in and kill every theiving, whoring, lowlife goddamn one of you; it is the duty of every Christdent to destroy soldiers of darkness, without trial, without prejudice. That is Canon!”

”Are these ferals,“ she then asked,” then, part of the fedayeen we’ve been hearing so much about?“

”They are indeed ,“ Meyer watched himself say. ”The DirtComs and their fellow travellers have been turning ‘em out for years, Ashleigh, doing things to ‘em that simply aren’t fit for broadcasting...genital mutilation, cuttin’ off their titties, nerve torture, electroshock, beatings, starvation, whippings, and, of course, gang rape...things that make them as hardcore and brutal as their femdommes, make them more than willing to fight to the death and trade their lives for ours...that’s what fedayeen means, Ashleigh, it’s an Arab word for ‘self-sacrifice,’ and they damn sure mean it.“

”That some in the Twice-Born government, our government and in the governments of all the other Federation member states knew about what was going on?“ Meyer’s alter ego finished her assigned question for her.

”I’m afraid the answer to that’s a matter of Union security,“ he added,”and I can’t discuss it on the Net; what I can tell you , however, is we now have indisputable evidence that the traitor Micheal Bauer, who attempted to slaughter Terranovan citizens in their own home soil, was not only a sleeper agent of the Commonwealth’s State Security Buerau, but is herself feral, who, for years, dressed and lived as one of us, both because her orders dictated she do so, and, because, like all your kind, she despised the damn thing she w—”

“Fuck,” Meyer interjected, his plant telling him,”Fleet General, you have an urgent communication from Terranova—”

“When is it not an urgent comm?” Meyer asked mainly himself, starting to tell his AI implant to,”shitca—”

“It’s from Governor Zellner himself,” the plant replied, Meyer was quick to tell it to put Zellner through, the holo of the Governor of the Union floating in front of him, coming straight to the point:

“Shut your fat hole, and listen for once, Meyer. TSID Internal Surveillance just commed me, told me the TSID AI network in New Athens just had a query from one of the transportal AIs in the old complex underneath your feet; damn thing asked for and received confirmation of one of our operatives’ credentials—”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

And, it, Zellner’s holoimage, the lights, the ‘cast from Skywalker Ranch, every goddamn thing went dark, Meyer shouting in the darkness for his plant to tell him what the fuck was going on.

“Please specify,” his plant had the nerve to reply.

“Bitch,” Meyer spat back at the stupid fucking,” I’ve been kicked offline, my terminal’s dead, the lights are out, and my plant’s asking me stupid questions. Is that specific enough, you glorified goddamn abacus, or do I—”

“You are mistaken, Fleet General,” his plant fucking sat there in the back of his brain, and told him. “I have just finished running a diagonostic series and have found all my systems operating normally.”

“The hell you say,” Meyer replied, getting up from his chair, hearing someone screaming from outside,”all the MHDs have gone offline, and this goddamn, fuckin’ ghetto piece of shit’s telling us it’s all still up an—”

“This is the Federation commander on Twice-Born,” Meyer, quick to realize what was going on,”to all Federation personnel on planet. We have a breach in containment, I say again, we have a breach in containment. All personnel inside the AFEG Police Headquarters Building are to carry out zero-survival protocols at once, I say again, zero-survival is now in effect. Terranovan 44th Shock Army, Royal Nova Virginian 16th Army, Cascadian 19th Army and Oswald 53d Army, you are to withdraw from your current positions and fall back to the—”

It was then the Federation commander on Twice-Born realized his plant was hissing static back at him, another quick check of its systems telling him everything was A-OK with it.

For a third time, Fleet General Paul Meyer spoke the F-word out loud.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:19:50 ZULU

“Fuck!” swore Guy Thomas Zellner, Governor of the Union, pounding his fists on the conference table as Meyer’s fat ugly face was replaced by snow over the terminal.

“Echo me to RUS Enterprise!” he shouted to the comm officer in the Union Security Council’s subterranian chambers three hundred klicks away from the Hilton Head Island Resort, the noble African visage of Commanading General Jefferson Davis Selkirk, Chairman of the Union Security Council, appearing just long enough to say,”sir, we’re trying to comm our forces on Twice-B—” before he too disappeared into static.

And, even the static disappeared, replaced by a Microsoft critical stop dialog box telling him the following had just happened:

“A virus has been detected by the system in the file ’ http.unionsecuritycouncil.c.ansible. configuration ‘ and may be present in all other files in this filesystem. The file has been deleted; all other files and hardware referenced by this file will no longer function.”

Clicking the OK button via plant only got the Governor of the Union this dialog:

“A virus has been detected by the system in the file ‘ http.unionsecuritycouncil.c.radarsystems. configuration’ and may be present in all other files in this filesystem. The file has been deleted; all other files and hardware referenced by this file will no longer function.”

and, this one after that:

“A virus has been detected by the system in the file ‘ http.unionsecuritycouncil.c.commsystems. configuration’ and may be present in all other files in this filesystem. The file has been deleted; all other files and hardware referenced by this file will no longer function.”

“A DDB,” Sir Heathcoate Saint John, Deputy Commissioner of the True Britannic Republic Of Oswald, remarked, stating the very motherfucking obvious,”spreading like a plague throughout Federation military comm and sensor systems on Twice-Born and throughout the rest of the Federation military infastructure via ansible.”

“Crippling us,” Theodore Krantz, State President of the Casshole Republic, said,”if only for enough time for our people to purge the virus from their systems and reinstall uncorrupted data states from backup.”

“About three to five hours,” Saint John remarked,”at best.”

“We’ll simply have to move on and tend to other business,” Roger Selwyn Tarrant, High Comissioner of Oswald, Chairman of the Executive Council of the United Federation of Sovereign Star Nations—at least for now—decided, before the Governor of the Union could say anything. “Damien, Meyer’s comments during this morning’s interview—”

“Already,” Damien d’Souza, Chairman of the Skywalker Ranch Media Committee, said,”working on it, Roger. Noon today, we plan to have Bauer’s personal physician give evidence before the House of Commons stating that Bauer was, in fact, a feral disguising itself as one of us, and that he was ordered by Bauer to cover it up.”

“Micheal—” the Governor of the Union, not liking this at all, started to object.

“Bauer,” d’Souza then said, compounding his treachery against his Governor by daring to interrupt him,”will then, in a press conference an hour after that, dismiss this as just another attempt by the radfem, sojus, left-wing Jew conspiracy in general, and you in particular, Guy, to destroy the one person dedicated to stopping them, given that your previous attempts to use both Monica Levens and his half-sister against him didn’t succeed. He will then claim he has indisputable evidence that you, amongst others, are a feral in male drag—”

“And,” Israel said, smiling in spite of what that bastard had done to him,”while each of us is throwing around accusations that the other’s pussy wanting to be dick, we plant the idea that there are self-hating ferals disguised as men within our midst, in the highest levels of our governments, police and armed forces, reinforcing the idea that they not only hate what they are even more than we do, but also they’re out to get us.”

The Governor of the Union nodded, refilling his waterglass with more vintage Kentucky, asking the MedCom Chairman:

“What further developments are on the horizon for Ellen and Juliann?”

“Ellen,” d’Souza replied,”or, rather, our Ellen, is scheduled for an interview with Meribeth Viera, Barbara Wallace, Lucy Lewis and Starr Winston tonight on The View; there, she’ll slag down Juliann, tell the worlds she only used her for access to her Skywalker Ranch connections, make some catty comments about her not being very good in bed...the usual.

And, no worries about our Ellen not doing her lines; got the best in the biz riding that skin.”

“That damn well had better be the case,” Rashad Malcolm Muhammed, President of the Secret, Supreme, Exalted High Committee of the New Confederate Order, said,”after the time, effort and, especially money we’ve already expended.”

“If,” d’Souza, jerking a hand in Tomas Carerra’s direction as he spoke,”his bitch hadn’t insisted we use her to provide the example instead of Juliann, like I thought we all agreed to six days ago, when the TSID happened upon them in their little panty raid—”

“At the time,” the President of the Timocratic Republic of Twice-Born insisted,”Arnold’s cooperation was still needed.”

“Yeah,” d’Souza remarked nastily, pouring himself some more Floodplain grain.

“We got what we wanted, Damien,” Harrison Braidwood, President of the Board of Supervisors of the California Free State, said,”I don’t see what dif—”

“She was the greater source of annoyance to us,” the true Israel replied, breaking each word off in the Californio’s ass.

“And,” d’Souza added,” Griswold wasn’t man enough to keep the bitch we gave him from going bad on him and us; on top of that, she fucking gets pregnant with her—”

“You,” Leopold Eichmann, Fürher of the Deutchesnationalsocialismusbund, warned the MedCom chairman,”would do well to go no further with that comment.”

And, that miserable excuse for a father chuckled in reply to Eichmann’s threat.

“I think,” his Governor, balling his fists up at his sides,”we all like to know just what the fuck’s so goddamn funny, Pops?!”

“Merely laughing at myself, little Guy,” that bastard told him.

“At all of us,” he added.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:01:05 ZULU

Sergeant Major Harriet Mangione screamed at the top of her lungs, charging headlong through the one-way mirrored clearcarbon of the fuck tank, her SPAM130 blazing away, the ten-stone, 147cm tall, forty-six year old woman stopping for nothing, slamming another 498-kilogram box mag home when the one it replaced ejected itself spent, hot and glowing white onto the deck, firing, vectoring a BPG warhead toward four of the five dops still having the indecency to still be wiggling.

Leaving just the one who was on top of that poor girl, not a day over nineteen, if she were even that old...she was screaming in pain, blood pouring out of her, as she-he-it stifled his victim’s screams with an arm across her windpipe, shoving the fucking dildo he’d strapped onto himself deeper into her, turning round, tossing long, curly, blond hair, looking at Harriet with pale blue eyes, having the nerve to ask her ”ya wanna join in, swe—”

Just before the veteran Commonwealth Starmarine SNCO tore the motherfucker off her, slamming it into the floor, driving the butt of her weapon right into its fucking skull, not stopping when it was a bloody, misshapen lump, not even stopping when that lump had become a smear on the fucking deck.

That was when she noticed the tears running down her cheeks, fists balled up at her sides, as she turned towards the young woman that bonesmoker had been brutalizing in the name of every woman who’d ever lived, the poor thing looking at her with fear in her dark eyes, trying desperately to crawl away from Harriet, whimpering “please, please, d-don’t...I-i’ll d-do—”

“Oh, no, baby,” Harriet whispered, sobbing, not knowing when she’d gone down on her knees and taken hold of that girl, hugging her to her breasts,”no, I’m not going to hurt you; no one’s ever gonna hurt you again, I promise, no one’s ever...”

And, she just broke down, holding the young woman against her even tighter.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:06:59 ZULU

“Goddamnit,” Drac whispered, tears streaming down his cheeks, his eyes on his troop sarnt major cradling another victim of the fucking Brokedown Palace in her arms, rocking her like a baby, as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Sighing, the commander of 515 Starmarine Regiment reminded himself not to put this in his after-action report, his niece would only blame herself needlessly for Harriet’s pain, and, there’d been enough of that shit, especially over the last six days.

The fighting in this level had died down, none of the guards or dops having survived the assault, twenty-six more of those under his command dead, 120 altogether, with only ten levels secured, eleven including the power room, 490 more of cellblocks to go before gaining the ground floor, and he’d been leaving a section of Starmarines behind on every level, leaving him with 980 Starmarines and one Mid reporter, to carry the fight further upward.

Math smoked monkeybone, but they were the only numbers he had to—

G.F. Carpathia!

Everything shook, the emergency coldlamps providing the block with its only illumination going out, quite a few of his people knocked off-balance by the impacts of bomb-pumped graser warheads—152s at least—detonating and driving gras into the AFEG Police HQ building in quick—

Those were 130s, salvoed at damn close range, Drac’s Earther ears picking up the faint but unmistakable sounds of small-arms fire five klicks above his head, mixed in with 130s fired at comparatively point-blank range.

JMC must’ve sent in every spare allied squaddie they had on the ground the instant they detected the MHD shielding and everything else in the Brokedown Palace shutting down, thanks to the polymorphic deaf, dumb and blind virus Drac’s people had echoed to the AI net, after they’d gated into the AFEG Police HQ’s now sealed-off telegate stage, used viral solvent to eat a hole through the ceiling and gained the power room after a quick, bloody skirmish; the virus had sought out all driver code, rewriting it with a blankfile, altering all the checksums so that a diagnostic would show everything was as it should be, then replicating and echoing itself into anything network comms could access, going on from there.

Only way to undo the damage was to purge the infected solid-state memory storage, and restore them from offline backups...assuming those hadn’t been infected as well, and, if the enemy’s techs had actually observed proper backup proceedures, they shouldn’t be, but—

More 130s slammed into the building, more bits of ceiling raining down on his head.

The life expectancy of the Brokedown Palace’s inmates just decreased tenfold, those bastards didn’t need orders to implement zero-survival, not if they stood a better than even chance of being overrun, and they probably did, that sounded like a division of mechies, at least, topside, and less than fifteen minutes remained of the hour it should’ve taken the A Fucks’ techheads to restore data states from uncorrupted SSDs, probably on a secondary AI network upstairs.

“Move, goddamn you! MOVE!” Captain Janey Lunden, commanding a company of the Avalon |Royal Guard’s 411th Volunteer Mechanized Infantry Regiment, screamed over tacnet, her SPAM130 blazing away as the VT harness lifted her over the burning wreckage of a War Pig tactical transport, her MHD shielding glowing blue, indigo, violet, even black in too many places, 130s, 50s, and 13s from the A Fucks blocking her way slamming into it from all directions, the AFEG cops adding their assault and heavy massdrivers, tribarrels, and anti-materiel massdrivers to the mix, Janey continuing to move forward in spite of all that hostile fire, returning most of it, the underground parking garage servicing both the AFEGs Police HQ and their Hall of Justice shaking as 50s, 130s, and 230s from allied atmo fighters, airlifter gunships, starfighters, AKVs and assault shuttles overhead, plus a couple of 152s and 203s from JMC arty and frigates slammed into the buildings above them, knocking out what few MAPs and turreted 50s still firing, the coldlamps providing the sole illumination down here also winking out under the fury of the shelling topside.

Police cruisers, tac transports and civilian vehicles all blew up as her fire struck home, the cops using them for cover firing, as they backpedaled towards the lift and stairwell entrances, the hostile mech infantry pouring it on as they all advanced on her, more of her shielding turning black in spots, their shielding radiating into the blue and violet parts of the electromagentic spec—

Four of her 130s struck home at the same time, four dozen AFEG mech infantrymen all blown apart in an instant, spraying their burning junk and mortal remains all over their comrades, all of whom continued closing the range with her, all guns blazing, Janey firing back, advancing without letup, her suit screaming warnings of imminent MHD failure\, two dozen more of the enemy going up in roars of light, as their shields failed first, six dozen more taking their places, explosions everywhere deafening her, even with the sound blockers in her helmet up and running, the building shaking again and again, more gras being driven into it from up top, some of the enemy mechies looking towards the ceiling at the same time they drove bomb-pumped gras into her MHD shielding.

Janey drove on, straight for what had been entrances to the lift shafts, now a huge, still-smoking hole in the ferrocrete, TDU, lead, and cryogenic ammonia composite of the interior wall.

Through which her weapon’s array of radars and electromagnetic spectrum intercept gear could successfully scan.

Five klicks’ worth of subterranian cellblocks, millions of dark cubicles less than a cubic meter in volume apiece, like the one she’d spent the first twelve years of her life growing up in before the Liberation had set what little of her that remained free.

“Drive on through!” she screamed, charging for the breach in the wall with everything she could shift to the VT harness, attacking the sons of bitches between it and her with renewed ferocity.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:23:00 ZULU

“AVENGE! KOHOUTEK!” Major Priscilla Lovett, commanding the 522d Mechanized Combat Battalion, 18th Mechanized Combat Regiment, 42d Mechanized Combat Brigade, 109th Mechanized Combat Division of the Federation of Midnight Sun’s 13th Army, shouted over battalion tacnet, her Midnight Sun Arms M2166 heavy massdriver banging away, as she followed in the wake of those Avalon mechies charging for the breach in the garage’s interior wall, all of her battalion’s eighty mech infantry combat teams, including her own, following her, all guns blazing, hot lines of electric blue touching and exploding enemy troops and cops all around them, as the Midnight Sun soldiers followed their Avalon sisters in arms through the breach, down the shaft, their suits’ integral VT harnesses propelling them toward the first opening on that shaft, through it, into an eerily coldlamp-lit corridor, the Avalons swarmed and nearly borne down by dops, many in AFEG Police camo blues, many in blue-denim jumpsuits, all of them screaming what were supposed to be Amazon war chants, as they slipped through the Avalon mechies’ MHD shielding, and connected with chains, fusbeam cutters, clubs, shivs, fists and feet.

“By God, fuckin’ kill ‘em all!” Priscilla found herself screaming at the top of her lungs, walking her M2166 across the ranks of these parodies of women, watching helplessly, as, up ahead, even more grotesqueries masquerading as women dragged...oh, holy Jesus H. Christ, most of them were skeletons, bruised, bloody, filthy, shaved, shaking skeletons, and those miserable goddamn bonesmokers were fucking making them beg one more time before they—

“FUCKIN’ KILL ‘EM ALL!” the thirty-year veteran of one fucking war too many screamed again, driving the butt of her weapon into the skull of one too close to shoot, splattering another one’s brains all over the deck, her free hand reaching for her fusbeam cutter, shoving it through MHD shielding, right up against some bastard’s clevage before firing the son of a bitch up, and hearing the motherfucker scream, Priscilla’sM2166 glowing white-hot, the spent mag also white with heat, when it ejected itself from her weapon, the Midnight Sun soldier not remembering, when she’d stopped to slot a replacement magazine into the rear-mounted receiver, but she must have, she was firing full-bore with the damn thing, splattering doppelganger motherfuckers all over the walls and floor like swarms of smallflies going splat! against the front bumper field of a fast-moving car.

More A Fucks, cops and soldiers, charged down the corridor at them, some of them in the lead brandishing 50mm AMDCs and anti-materiel rifles, vectoring BPG against the Avalons in a vain hope of trying to stop them, the Avalon mechies hosing the bastards all over the walls, the Midnight Sun mechies now surging past them, through more men hellbent on slaughter, going at them bayonets and rifle butts, forcing open cell doors, getting to their inmates, before their jailers could kill them, turning a corner—

Oh, Jesus H. Christ.

Jesus H. Christ.

Priscilla couldn’t take her eyes off the defiled, brutalized corpse of what had once been a woman...hanging upside down from the center of the cellblock proper, the chain from which she slowly swung attached to a meathook shoved into her...her breasts mutilated, her body covered in bruises, welts from fuswhippings, blood, her own excrement...her face twisted in a way that only could’ve come from someone who’d died from nerve torture.

A Bible verse:

REVELATION 17:5

branded into her forehead.

A dop, long dark hair spilling down the shoulders of she-he-its tight-fitting camo-blue suit, just looked at her, more of its kind dragging their victims from their miserable holes to be just as miserably executed, the motherfucker having the indecency to say:

“Don’t look so surprised, sweetie, that’s what we are, what we ferals d—”

“The first thing we have to do,” the new Yanker AG said to Lyle Hammond,“is discard the old IH notion that girlies are all sugar and spice and everything nice; as even their own kind freely admit to, in the recently-published books Odd Girl Out and Queen Bees and Wannabes, the truth is completly different altogether.

As studies suppressed by the radfems and their sojus fellow travellers in the training and doctrine establishment, media, governments, churches and law-enforcement organizations for years bear out, as these two recently-released books, both written by radfems now being hunted down for betraying the Family—as the femsex-slave network is euphemistically referred to by their own kind—girls and women are exceptionally cruel to one another, forming dominance hierarchies at an early age, each girl the slave of the girl above her, doing anything her mistress asks of her without question, enslaving the girls immediately below her, forcing them to do anything she asks of them, while she and her mistress are, in turn, the willing slaves of another girl above them and so on...and, yes, Lyle, this slavery is sexual in nature, involving the most grotesque perversities that, quite frankly, the male mind can’t even begin to wrap itself around...we’re just not wired up like them.”

“No,” Hammond replied,“ we aren’t, it seems. Even for one of the leading experts on the female mind, such as yourself, Doctor Baker, their actions must come as a continuing shock for you.”

My God, how anyone could even think what they do to one another and those poor girls is anywhere even close to normal, healthy sexuality, continues to boggle the mind...or, at least, my mind...her two daughters, after repeated acts of femsexual depravity at her hands—”

“The vampire,” Hammond remarked,”turns her victims into more vampires, and the cycle of pain and eternal spirtual death continues.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself, Lyle,”Baker said.”That’s exactly what happened; the older sister, clearly the dominatrix over the other girl, gave drugs to the girls she worked and went to tradoc with, addicting them, using that addiction to force her victims to submit to acts of unspeakable perversity at the hands of her and her sister, turning them into willing slaves to their own innate female drives, who then went out and recruited more fempervs into their so-called Family.”

She had her bare, little, ankle-braceleted right foot on the back of a howling little blonde bitch—wearing only rings on the lips of her dripping-wet pussy and the perfectlly-pink nipple of her right tit, shackles round her slender, pale wrists and ankles and a collar around her neck—black bitch was jerking hard on the leash round the other howler’s pale throat, keeping her down on her hands and knees, laying into her bare, creamy white bottom with the fuswhip in her right hand.

“This,” Baker’s voice said in the background, “is one of the many pictures and holos the TSID confiscated during their raid on the Terranova College and Republican Union University campus this past Friday; this one’s of Alexandra Winslow and an eleven-year old girl engaged in a typical femsex act. My understanding is Watson’s sixteen-year old sister—LaTonya, I believe her name is—took the picture you see there, while she was waiting her turn.”

“To be whipped?” Hammond’s voice asked.

“To do the whipping, actually,” Baker replied, as the HV cut back to the two of them in Mid-Morning Cascadia’s studios on Skywalker Ranch. “You see, the eleven year old was that evening’s bottom girl...she had to do everything the twisted Winslow sisters told her to do, and I mean, everything.”

“The next night,” he added, the holo behind both of them showing the exact act of femsex the Yanker AG had just got through describing,“it was the sister who had to submit to both Alexandra and the other girl; in fact,” the holo now showed the little blonde bitch mashing sweet sixteen-year old pussy into the pillows, spanking and fucking that tight little ass good,” that evening began with the eleven-year old girl dominating and abusing LaTonya, while her older sister watched the child humilate and degrade her baby sister.”

Allowing a few moments for the studio audience to gasp in outrage and on cue, Baker concluded,” the night after that...you can pretty much guess the progression by now.”

“It really doesn’t take much imagination,” Hammond replied,“ does it?”

“It doesn’t,” Baker answered,“no.”

No, Griswold thought to herself, the building shaking again, the sound of gunfire in the hall outside the re-rezz chamber’s dressing room getting louder by the second, it doesn’t; that was what the nasty, fucking bulldyker was doing to my bitch, my goddamn piece of fucking pussy, shit like that, and God only knows how much worse, before turning her nasty fucking ass loose to fuck eleven year old girlies and teenies with fucking fists, feet and straps.

That’s what the fuck they were doing at that damn bulldyking factory in Wesley in the first place, trolling for sorority bimbos and ‘liberated’ little girlies buying their freedom with every dollar they can fuck their daddies out of to tune up, turn out and turn away from every decent goddamn thing their men had tried to fuckin’ teach ‛em for life as howlers in the goddamn jungle.

She should know, she’d certainly played more than his fair share of ferals back when she was doing pornos full time; that was forty, fifty years ago, she’d just started out in the biz then, riding skin and teaching spoiled-rot little brats what they were really all about.

She studied herself in the full-length mirror...goddamn, but she looked good, the skin in which she rode a spitting image of the little blonde bitch who’d turned her girlie away from her.

Griswold bounced on the balls of her feet to see her titties flop; just the right size, not at all like the infected bug bites the little bitch had called breasts.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Griswold’s blond hair had been cut even shorter—more butch—than the little howler had worn it, but she hadn’t been much of an actor to begin with, that was why her show had gotten the spike in the first place, not because she ‘d been doing lickety split, no matter how much she bitched about that.

Shit, even one of her own kind—Orson’s little blonde piece of pussy, who Zellner’s fat little boy had, in an attempt at irony, named Chastity—had come out and told the worlds the bitch had only started muff diving as a publicity stunt to drive up the ratings on that crappy show of hers, Lifetime had carried her long enough.

She grimaced at her ugly, little pug nose, nothing at all like the aquiline probiscis of the man sitting next to the re-rezz chambers, watching her debase herself like a good girl.

Time to get dressed, the teal thong panties first

Jesus toast, the damn thing was tight, her ass already three sizes bigger than it had been, how anyone could fucking wear an ugly goddamn thing like that; ferals weren’t really anyone at all, though, that explained their taste, or lack thereof, in clothes.

Such as the matching teal tank top she just barely succeeded into slipping into, her midriff still left bare by the skimpy garment.

She pursed her red-painted lips into a nasty bonesmoking little O, Griswold blowing kisses to her reflection in the mirror, telling her reflection,”we can’t help what we are, sweetie,” three times, each time in a lower, more seductive tone.

Satisfied with her voice, Griswold then checked the barbed wire tattoo encircling her powerful upper left arm, turning to check how well it moved, when she flexed her muscles, before she picked up the blue denim prison coveralls sporting the words “TELFAIR METROPOLITAN DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS” in white along the back, stepping into them and zipping them up the front, leaving substanial cleavage showing ...nice and tight, just like she would’ve worn ‘em, outstanding.

Outstanding, she thought to herself, looking at herself in the mirror, smiling with her lips as she pulled up her socks, put on the pair of black sneakers which went with the prison uniform.

“We can’t help what we are, sweetie,” she said one last time in her voice...just simply outstanding, she thought to herself one more time, suitably impressed.

Picking her strap up off the table, Griswold made one last examination of herself in front of the full-length mirror, nodding her head once, before walking out into the cellblock, towards the Alfa fuck tank, to teach her bad little girlie, once and for all, to hate herself and every other goddamn little skank every bit as much as she did.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:41:18 ZULU

The techs had reinstalled the comm and sensor drivers about a half hour ago...they were still working on the drivers for the internal defenses, the MHD shielding, and everything else even halfway useful.

Not that it mattered now, Meyer, standing in theAFEG Headquarters’ command center, on the ruin of the 183d floor, thought to himself, watching the situation rapidly deteriorate, all he could do...overhead—he could see directly overhead now that the 183d through 300th floors were no longer blocking his view—that ass Jeff Selkirk had arrived just in time to get pounded by his little black girl, her Raptors continuing to provide fire support to the Mid, Avalon and DirtCom jackboots on the deck pretty much having the run of the three streets below, the artillery and armor assets the AFEGs had deployed to defend this place now burning piles of twisted junk littering the ferrocrete, with cops, mech infantry and horse cavalry smeared all over the pavement.

And, inside the building as well, a DirtCom mech infantry division fighting its way through the upper part of the structure, whilst the bulk of three enemy armies went tearing through the cell blocks, all guns blazing, the dops on the crews and the guard units fighting back with everything they had, trying to implement zero-survival at the same time they tried to take as many of the invaders down as they could.

That was without even mentioning the Commie Starmarines who’d managed to gate into a supposedly ungateable facility, and create the havoc that made it possible for the building to be so effortlessly taken in the first place; they were being chewed up and spat out by the dops, forced to leave people behind to keep what they’d secured secured, doomed to run out of troops before they ran out of cell blocks, and nowhere near enough to link up with their friends on the upper levels.

“All surviving guard units and crews,” Meyer said into his newly-restored plant, his eyes on the holoprojected schematic of the cellblocks underneath the building,”fall back to blocks 322 through 324; make your stand there. All available AFEG Police tac units, set up ambushes on the blocks immediately above and below that position. 28th Royal Nova Virginia Marine SCCR Division, abort the containment ops in the Anthony Homes housing project, proceed immediately to the AFEG Police Headquarters building; DNSB 11th StürmjägerPanzergrenadier Army, move up from your positions on Dogwood and Pine in support of the Ginnies, Oswald 73d Army and Deseret 119th Army, advance along Telfair and Bishop Streets, do it now!”

“Sergeant,” he asked one of the AFEG cops manning the command center,”have our people reached the manual overrides for the pluto gas discharge system yet?”

“Sir,” the sergeant, with hashmarks almost all the way up his fucking arm, replied,”AFEG Army 57th Striker Regiment reports heavy resistance in the power and sewage tunnels directly underneath the building; Coloniel Brenner estimates his men are being fully engaged by at least two Midnight Sun FedArmy mechanized combat regiments, possibly an entire mech combat brigade, blocking any approach to the pluto gas system manual o—”

“Fuck,” Meyer interjected, his word for the day, it seemed; an explosion on this floor rocked the command center, the explosion immediately followed by gunfire coming right up the goddamn hall.

“Any Federation military starcraft within transportal range,” he said into his plant, as the AFEGs stripped the arms locker bare of mass-acceleration weapons,”any Federation military starcraft in range, this is Terranovan Republican Starfleet Fleet General Paul Meyer, Terranovan Special Provost Marshal for Twice-Born, requesting immediate extraction from the AFEG Police Headquarters Building at the intersection of Pine, Telfair and Bishop Streets; I say again, this is—”

A welcome shimmering formed not three meters in front of the Terranovan Special Provost Marshal for Twice-Born, Meyer running like hell through the quantum tunnel, just as the command center doors were blown off their tracks and Commie bulldykers started pouring through them, chopping up Snakeheads left and right.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:44:48 ZULU

“Bastards!” Jay Todman heard Drac spit out over comms, the FedNewsNet flogger recording the scene before them when they’d climbed up onto Block 397.

The HMD13 in his old friend’s hands shook impotently, all those mutilated, desecrated female corpses hanging upside down from the ceiling from meathooked ropes shoved into them; going forward, they were going to be too fucking late to save anyone, even what was left of their own souls, from the horror awaiting them...only sixty of them left now, 61 counting Jay, Drac not having enough manpower to leave anyone behind, not if he wanted to reach the remaining levels and link up with the Avalon, Midnight Sun and Commonwealth troops making their way down through these lowest warrens of this particular Hell.

Fucking Mont Noir all over again; over half of Unbroken’s flight crewhad laid down their lives that day, and only 36 of the billions who’d suffered there had survived, another in a long string of empty victories.

“No life signs,” Harriet Mangione’s half-choked whisper said over the link, Dunstan nodding, looking up through the chasm in the center of the cellblock over which they all hovered.

“Not a goddamn thing to be done here,” he said, swallowing, shaking his head.

“Let’s keep moving,” he told the others, ascending to the next cellblock level.

12 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:55:26 ZULU

“No, you miserable goddamn bonesmokers!” Priscilla screamed, the FedArmy officer pumping tanc into the dops pulling a...a girl, nine, maybe ten...by her matted, filthy hair from one of the cells, an instant from killing her, the bastards all turning away from their victim, a couple going for their M32A4s as BPG slammed into their MHD shielding, Priscilla closing the triggering circuit of her M2166, drawing her Midnight Sun Arms M2140 massdriver pistol with her free hand, firing that as well, driving more bomb-pumped gras into MHD, little novae blossoming where they were stopped dead, novae exploding all along her shielding as the dops returned her fire, Priscilla barely noticing the blue-hot gras pulse drilling through the left shoulder of her ebon FedArmy powered combat armor, the veteran mech infantry officer feeling just enough pain to know she had been hit, paying no further attention to it, as she just kept pouring it on.

Two mags clattered empty and spent onto the deck, every one of those miserable bonesmokers sprayed all over the place, the girl they had been about to murder curled up into a tight little ball, shivering, expecting the absolute worst from the woman who’d just saved her life; no doubt taught by these things masquerading as her own goddamn tribe that one of her own would only save her in exchange for her being asked to do something singularly unpleasant.

Priscilla reloaded both weapons somewhere along the way, charging ahead into more of those murdering grotesqueries.

Is this what they did to Lisa?!

Goddamnit, not now, she didn’t want to think about that now, about the mother of their children dying in such an ugly way at fucking Mont Noir, she didn’t want to remember, not that, not a beautiful woman, who only wanted to grow things, to make dead worlds come alive, dying frightened, broken, alone in that godddamn—

Gritting her teeth, sniffling, tears flowing freely down her cheeks, Priscilla kept right on going, both weapons firing full-bore, exploding dops left and right, doing everything she could to keep those bastards from hurting their captives one last time.

Is this what those sick Yanker fucks did to Lisa?!

She still remembered that day when President Todman had come to her, her company in the middle of the Bonita rainforest fighting Yankers, Cassholes and Cali Dope Kings, the President, having lost someone close to him in the exact same fucking way, looking like telling Priscilla how the DirtComs had found her wife was the last fucking thing he’d wanted to do, but he had no choice, he’d been the President of her people’s Senate, during humanity’s twenty worst years, he had had no choice.

Is this what they fucking did to her?!

A knot of those bastards had a girl up against the railing, pulling her panties down, bending her over, fucking her with fists and nerve batons, spanking her, screaming at her to,”stop your damn crying, you should know better than to think it’d work on your kind, lil’ g—”

“Yo,” the she-he-it in AFEG Police camo blues had the gall to ask Priscilla,”Middie, ya wanna help us teach this lil’ girlie what we ferals are a—”

This was what they fucking did to her, to a beautiful lady, they fucking made her ugly in her own sight before they fucking let her die, those miserable, goddamn—

“—sons of bitches!” she screamed over and over, pumping BPG into every one of those animals, not letting a goddamn one of them get away, the one who’d had the indecency to ask her if she wanted to join in, the one who’d told that poor thing to stop her crying, that it didn’t work on her own race, at the same time it had been shoving its gauntled fist into her in what it wanted to believe was sex between women, pulled out of her, running away, her blood on one filthy paw, the other scrabbling for the holstered massdriver pistol, the entire front of its MHD shielding exploding with points of white-hot brilliance, the spectrum shifting upward, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, bla—

Priscilla’s breath came in ragged gasps, as she lingered near the spot where the murdering dop piece of shit had been before she’d sent it to where all good men burned best, her M2166’s magazine echoing through out the block as it hit the deck, spent and steaming hot.

“Sons of bitches,” she sobbed, still looking at the greasy smoke which had been one of the subhuman race who’d murdered her wife.

And, a piece of herself as well.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

14) We Are Born In the Devil’s Scorn, They Want To See You Die“We are born in the devil’s scorn, they want to see you die. I’m asking you, are you true. ‘Cause everything they say is a lie, it’s a lie.”—Indigo Girls,”1 2 3”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 11:19:22 ZULU

“You stupid, goddamn little howler!” Ellen Griswold screamed, giving Her bitch the back of Her hand, laying Her other powerful forearm across her pale, white throat so she wouldn’t let the whole fucking planet know just how much of a goddamn licentious fucking howler she was every time Mistress banged Her bad little girlie’s box good.

“Stupid fuckin’ cunt!” She spat at her with another powerful thrust deep into that bloody pussy.

“S-she,” that little bitch had the indecncy to say to her Lady,”w-would n-nevaaaahhhhhhhhh!”

Goddamn, could that horny little piece of blonde fucking twat scream, as she made Mistress bone her again and again, Mistress sticking Her tongue-studded tongue down in Her spoiled-rot little subbie’s other pink fucking hole to shut her up, slapping her again, biting down hard on her neck, hard enough for Her girl to cum blood there too, Mistress grabbing hold of her hair, slamming her head down into the ferrocrete of the fuck tank, screaming:

“Bitch, how many goddamn times doI have to tell you I never fuckin’ loved you?! That I can’t ever love you, because you’re a fuckin’ girl, you can never love, you can never be loved, all you’re good for is fuckin’,” that last word was torn from Mistress’ throat at the same time Mistress tore Her girlie’s ass up with the instrument of Her authority over Her little one’s naked body and soul,”and, you ain’t even good for that, nothing, nothing in comparison to being with a man!Onlya man can love and be loved, lil’ howler, only a man, not some brainless piece of blonde fuckin’ pussy,” She thrust herself again into the squirming, worthless little piece of shit underneath her,”the fuckin’ pussy,” another powerful thrust right up into the little howler’s throat,”of another goddamn mindless piece of pussy, the lowest fuckin’ form of life ever, existing only to be degraded, distorted, abused and humiliated for the amusement of even your goddamn fucking tribe!”

“S-she w-wouldn’t s-say, w-wouldn’t do—” the little fuck bitch dared defy Mistress by speaking without her permission, her Queen screaming in wild-animal lust as She tore into her naked prey, slamming its head down repeatedly into the ferrocrete, slapping her stupid, ugly goddamn face as She continued thrusting herself into her, shrieking the words:

“Return fire!” Senior CaptainJameison Sue Lanier screamed to Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Unbroken’s weapons engineering officers, Senior Lieutenant Stephani Aguinaldo already vectoring a fusillade of 203-millimeter bomb-pumped graser warheads from all the Raptors she had in flight towards the Yanker Columbia-class heavy cruiser filling up much of the battered comcon’s master holoproj, at a range close enough to him for neither his MHDs or his forty 203s to do him any good.

His 228 Predator starfighters, on the other hand, were still on top of Jami’s warbird, driving their 50s into her shielding, hurting her even worse than she had been, Unbroken’s 25 fifty-millimeter massdrivers struggling to rid their parent frigate of all those pests.

“Stay with that bastard, Micki!” Jami shouted to her second in command, Commander Michelle Phillips, her wife hardly needing Jami’s orders to keep her father’s flagship from opening up the range between them, constant thoughts from her AI implant to her multiple control holodisplays, keeping the ship in close, both starcraft upcycling at the same time, taking their fighters and AKVs with them, more of Unbroken’s comcon falling down around Jami, the straps of her chair slamming her violently back and forth.

“Stay with him, goddamnit!” the commander of the Unbroken shouted needlessly, her wife doing just that, Marisa and Stevie relentlessly driving 203s through the beams, through the shielding, through the fusleage, hot, blue points of light blossoming into being all over his sorry ass, blowing out pieces of him to be scattered all across the surface of this miserable, goddamn planet, the alcoholic, chickenheaded, murdering goddamn son of a bitch still alive in spite of this.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 12:00:00 ZULU

“You goddamn, useless fucking excuse for a goddamn bonesmoking cockwhore!” Commanding General Jefferson Davis Selkirk, Chairman of the Union Security Council, shrieked, tearing Republican Union Starcraft Enterprise’s four-eyed little bitch of a so-called helmsman out of his chair, throwing him across the heavy cruiser’s ruin of a bridge, and taking the wheel himself, like he should’ve done to begin with, upcycling his flagship in and out of hyperspace to try open up the range and use his big guns on that ungrateful chickenheaded, murdering goddamn little dy—

Major John Fluellen, the little soyboi pretending to be a chief engineer, whined in Selkirk’s head,”primary and secondary power grids are trashed, teritary power grid 91% disrupted, hangar bay destroyed, all spinhabs destroyed, starboard AKV bay destroyed, MHD shiel—”

“Fuckin’ shut your goddamn cooter!” Selkirk screamed, eyes fixed onto that miserable backstabbing cunt; after everything, every goddamn thing, he’d done for her, put up from her—after sacrificing his shot at the Governorship of the Union just to please her sorry skank black ass—it just wasn’t enough for his goddamn little chickenheaded lickylick of a daughter, no sir, buddy, she just had to keep embarassing him in public, making him look like an ass in front of Guy Zellner himself, and worse, in front of that South Coast piece of shit who used to be hisfuckin’ bitch back in his Academy days, with that latest fucking publicity stunt of hers.

“When I give the order,” he said to Captain Reed Malcolm,”you fuckin’ cut loose with everything you got, hear me, Captain?!”

He didn’t wait for a response, just cycled in and out, tapped on the torches and RCS thrusters, and screamed for that bonesmoker to “fire as we bear!”

The insolent little bitch having the nerve to question his superior’s orders:

“Sir, are you—”

“Goddamn you,” the Chairman of the Union Security Council shouted,”I said fire as we bear, and by God, that’s what I fuckin’ meant for your sorry white ass to do, Mister!”“Fire!” he screamed.”Now, goddamnit!”

The little bitch of a fico just kept on whining in response, Selkirk telling him to fuck himself, transferring weapons control to the helm, a third holodisplay appearing between the piloting and nav displays, Selkirk mentally closing the triggering circuit, unleashing a volley of 203s from the heavy cruiser’s(only ferals and other militarists would call this a battleship) eighteen remaining massdrivers at point-blank range.

Right into Enterprise’s fighters and AKVs.

The Chairman of the Union Security Council had that snivelling little mangina of a fico pinned against the bulkhead before he’d even thought to cross the deck, screaming,”you miserable, incompetent, goddamn fuckin’ bitch, do you see what you just fuckin‘did?! You fuckin’ killed your goddamn men, you stupid fucking chickenheaded, murdering, goddamn—”

His deck shook, that little bitch right on top of Enterprise’s ass,the other little bitch having the indecency to fucking try and talk back to her daddy:

“Sir,I-i tried to t-tell—”

Selkirk not having a goddamn bit of that bullshit, slamming Malcolm’s sorry cunt into the wall, asking him:

“Is anybody required to fuckin’ take responsibility for themselves anymore?!”

before dropping the useless bonesmoker to the deck, screaming for the red-armored Security troopers stationed here to drag his sorry ass and Merriweather’s off to the brig, and do it now.

That miserable, dickless goddamn excuse for a first officer opening his fucking cooter, telling Selkirk,” you were the one—”

“Him too, goddamnit!” Selkirk screamed to the squad of Starfleet Security, as the turbolift doors exploded into a million deadly projectiles.

“I’m goddamned sick and tired,” he added, the red suits doing his bidding,”of all you miserable fuckin’ bitches always holding me down, holding me back, and by God, I ain’t gonna put up with it anymore, get me?!”

“What?!” he demanded of Fleet General Paul Meyer, as the wrinkled up old piece of ass just stood there and looked at him with his bonesmoker wide open.

“Nothing, Mister Chairman,” that insubordinate little bitch calling herself Special Provost Marshal of fucking Twice-Born said, making sure to add an undertone of contempt to the title his superior had every fucking right to hold over him.

“Good,” Selkirk spat back at him.

“If it ain’t no trouble, Colonel Meyer,” he then said,”could you kindly take your old, fat, cracker ass over to the fire-control station and make yourself useful to me?!”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 12:06:18 ZULU

There she was, the goddamn little DirtCom bitch who’d shot him down, killed his guys, didn’t even fucking give them a chance to fight back.

“Let’s go tear up that ass, boys!” Major Pax Judas “Hammer” Rabwin screamed over group tacnet, aiming the FH-14 Pornstar Pagan had named Tubesteak Boogie straight at the little bitch, at the same time the three other surviving fighters from Cascadian Republican Starcraft Rio Grande’s hyperspace fighter squadron broke formation and went after the Greyhawk assault shuttle, and Rio Grande himself headed straight for the Unbroken.

That little bitch dancing out of the way of the salvo of 203 Rio Grande and its AKVs sent her way, the Yanker heavy the Commie warbird and her Raptors had been whipping up on dropping like a stone, pieces of him briefly flying up, before arcing back down, when the 203s tore into his ass.

For the moment, that left the DirtCom AKVs already in the air free to engage the remnants of Rabwin’s command, the little bitch, her bird painted with a fucked-up duckie along both sides of the diamond wing—like a Peep war cruiser almost—upcycling, the volley of 50s the Hammer had intended for her streaking right past where she’d been, the Cascadian hyperspace fighter squadron commander wasting no time in punching it himself, furiously closing the triggering circuit the second Tubesteak Boogie closed the range, BPG streaking through the thin, empty air of Twice-Born’s upper atmosphere.

Tubesteak Boogie bucking like a mustang, as 50s slammed into his tail, the shipnet warning Rabwin that the shielding was going to go any second, the Hammer making a tight, fast turn, bringing his guns to bear on that miserable fucking little squatter.

Who was just as bad, as that pinche Marilyn Issacs, who pretended she was an FO, but didn’t do one fucking thing, but bitch about being sexually harassed, bitch when she couldn’t even keep from nearly crashing into the surface of fucking Aurora, bitch about that being the fault of his daddy’s old FO and his top kick, bitch, bitch, bitch about everygoddamn thing under 26 motherfucking Draconis, as she tried her damndest to turn Silver Falls into a fucking 99¢ all you can motherfucking eat goddamn taco bar, bitching the whole fucking time about how much she hated slurping it up with another one of her kind.

Once he and the ISB got through with her, she wasn’t bitching anymore about a goddamn thing, that was for damn sure.

Hell, after he’d gotten through tuning her nasty little ass up—after he’d made her watch her little girlie get hers first—she wasn’t in any shape to bitch about anything in the first—

Pinche coño!

Goddamn Commie bulldyker went right under his right wing, close enough to scrape the paint job, Rabwin cursing, as he made another sharp, tight turn, upcycling same time she did, screaming exultantly as he briefly flew at the speed of light, coming out the other side, into normal space 500 klicks above Telfair.

Rabwin frantically working his controls, when it registered with him she was nowhere in sight, this ride through hyperspace feeling like the wrong end of a fifty-yard field goal attempt, alarms angrily buzzing in his helmet when Tubesteak Boogie downcycled abruptly to norm, his daddy’s old FO, Starcraft Commander Thomas Pendry, in his face, screaming for him to—

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 12:14:20 ZULU

“—get your sorry, goddamn ass back here, boy!” Starcraft Commander Thomas B. Pendry, commanding CRS Rio Grande, screamed at Pappy Rabwin’s stupid jackass of a son over shipnet, as his deck fell down around his ears, the goddamn little squatter who’d cost him his squadron command continuing to pound his bird, knocking it to pieces, three of his four remaining Harms already smears on the deck, his chief flight engineer, Captain Geoff Roberts, reporting,”MHD shielding reduced by 99%, primary power grid 84% disrupted, secondary power grid 65% disrupted, teritary power grid fried, massdrivers Alfas Two through Four, Bravos One and Three dismounted and off line, MHD beam forward and port emitters destroyed, hangar bay destroyed, AKV bays destroyed, spinhab destroyed, all sections opened to atmosphere, radiators two through eight destroyed, internal temp now 88 degrees, rising! Antimatter containment and thermopile shorting out! Reinfor—”

“Then do it, and don’t fucking talk about it!” Pendry snapped, as Rio Grande’s first officer, Major Pedro Rodriquez jinked and burned hard, then upcycled the 19,000-ton Vancouver-class destroyer.

Even if the so-called Hammer got his weakling New Vancouver elitist ass here in time, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, not a fucking bit, any more than Pendry’s entire fucking squadron had made any difference six days ago, when Unbroken and her squadron had just shot ‘em down left and right, saved from the kill shot Silver Falls had lined her up for only by Queen Bitch Lilith and a whole bunch of tacos coming down on the Cascadians like the wrath of God.

If that Yanker monkeyboy had only blown her out of the sky, when he had the chance, Pendry would still fucking be a bird coloniel on the fast-track to his first star; instead, he was lucky he didn’t end up in some crap assignment, taking orders from punks half his age, like that idiot son of Pappy’s.

Or, worse, being damned for all eternity as one of them.

Rio Grande cycled in and out of hyperspace, all guns blazing into empty sky.

Momentarily empty sky, the darva alarm warning of a tango two hundred klicks downrange and directly aft, Rodriquez jinking and upcycling againg, the ship bucking like a bronco, 203s impacting against his forward shielding in a blazing display of light, Roberts reporting more systems damaged or knocked out, as Captain Arsenio Murrieta returned fire with Rio Grande’s five remaining 203s, the DirtCom Raptors who’d jumped them easily juking to avoid incoming fire from Lieutenant Thomas Keifer’s twenty-five 50mm secondary massdr—

Jesus!

That time, it felt like his bird had been kicked by a bronco, cables flailing about all over the deck, spitting photons thisclose to Pendry’s face; the master holoproj was flickering, alarms howling and whooping all over the bridge, Pappy’s damn fool son, who he had to fucking raise after Pappy had been caught in bed with the wrong man once too often, a couple of Lieutenant Thomas Keifer meters off Rio Grande’s nose, pouncing on the little Juanita Taco who’d blasted him out of the sky once already, Pendry screaming for Rodriquez to alter vector and ram his bird right down Unbroken’s throat.

“I don’t know, and I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Pendry replied anyway, all of the Commie warbird’s AKVs still in the air peeling off to engage the battered Columbia-class heavy cruiser, Rabwin, of course, following their assault shuttle, as she too altered vector for Enterprise.

Commander Draco Selkirk gripped his HMD13, looking for something to kill, but there wasn’t anything, except naked, brutalized female corpses strung upside down from the ceiling, from every accessible place in the cellblock, meathooks shoved into them, bound hands dragging on the blood and shit-spattered floor, obscenities and the same fucking Bible verse, REVELATION 17:5, burned into bruised flesh, bodies—the whole damn cellblock—reeking of death and jizz.

Nodding his head to the others, he ascended through the opening in the ceiling above his head, onto another level where grey-suited Death and the dops in His service had beaten his people to the draw.

Someone had scrawled REVELATION 17:5 in female blood all over the cellblock, as well as branded it into their dead, desecrated bodies.

On the door of the cell directly facing the commander of Unbroken’s Starmarines:

“And, he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord , where the women wove hangings for the grove.”

written in the blood of one of those murdered here.

“That’s not the verse,” Jay Todman whispered from just behind Drac’s right shoulder.

“Second Kings,” the Mid flogger added,”chapter twenty-three, verse seven of the Received Canon.”

“It’s all one long death fuck anyhow,” he added, his HMD’s targeting array letting out a yelp so that he’d know about the two, three thousand troops coming uplevels toward his single troop of Commonwealth Starmarines and one Mid reporter.

He was about to holler for his people to get ready, when he took a closer look at what his weapon was telling him.

Commonwealth Starmarine IFF signals.

The people he’d left in the cellblocks below were amongst those moving to link up with him now, Senior Lieutenant Sarah Kochinski, commanding Statesman’s Starmarines, ascending to where he was, saluting him, explaining:

“Mids—three brigades of mechies—relieved us and sent us up here to join you, sir. A brigade—”

It was Drac’s turn to salute, snap to attention best he could hovering in the air in a VT harness, and say, “Sir!” to the full coloniel in FedArmy black powered armor, the Mid coloniel returning his salute, nodding her head slightly, replying ”Sir!” the instant she spotted Jay Todman.

“Mister President,” she then said, saluting Jay, the Mid reporter cringing slightly at the courtesy title, not wanting to be reminded of the two decades of his life he’d rather not relive.

That little skank Britnee Moore—wearing nothing but a pair of tight blue chomper hide G-string panties—was humping and licking a goddamn pole, shaking that nasty little ass of hers, howling out the lyrics to her newest song “Bad Lil’ Girlie.”

“Oooh, baby, spank me good,” cooed little Britnee, when Maria Santidad—wearing the same black-leather bodysuit she’d worn when she tongue-fucked the little blonde slut on stage during the MHVid Awards—came up on stage and popped that bitch’s ass as hard as she could with her studded leather-gloved hand, Britnee shaking it in her face, singing,“I’m such a bad lil’ girlie, oh that I won’t deny, such a bad lil’ girlie, need ya bone to make me right!”

The vid dissolved to her rubbing her titties while moving up against Justin Dewhurst, the lead singer of Moron, whispering,“I need ya bone to make me right, bay-bay,” and slowly pulling off her G-string with her free hand.

Guy Thomas Zellner, Governor of the Union, smiled, nodding his head in approval at what the Chairman of the Skywalker Ranch Media Committee had to show him.

“I have to hand it to you, Damien,” he said, knocking back another glass of Evan Wilson, as he sat in his suite, his back to both Damien d’Souza and Thurbert Baker, Mouse’s replacement as Attorney General. “Coupled with the deep throat your dop gave Lil’ Miss Pop-Tart,” he used the name the tabloids had dubbed her,”at the MHVid Awards, after she and that other little howler shook their half-naked little asses while performing ‘Loving Discipline,’ and the stories you’ve been floating about the bitch seducing and murdering her backup singer and his pregnant wife, there will remain no doubt in the minds of any of the target audience that every one of ‘em is as bad, as we say they are.”

“As bad,” he repeated, getting to the subject at hand,”as you’ve already made ’em out to be, Thurbert, congratulations.”

“Thank you, Guy,” Baker replied.

“Not so fast,” the true Israel then said.

“Since when do we make changes in plan,” he asked,”without notifying our superiors?”

“You meant the pix we created of that little black bitch tuning up her sister and that other one?” Baker asked.

“Yeah,” Zellner, recharging his glass,”those are the ones.”

“Hell,” he added,” they’re good pix, even if that one from the cover of Butch and Femme Fatales has been recycled just once too often for even our target audience to believe anymore.”

“It was my intention,” Baker replied,”to inform you the moment I returned to Terranova, Guy. I would have, before I left, or when I was on Skywalker Ranch; however, owing to recent breaches in security—”

“Point taken, Thurbert,” his Governor replied.

“Now, gentlemen,” he then said, turning his attention to the subject at hand,” for the hard questions—”

“Even with the raid on TC&RU2,” Baker was quick to reply,”even with the explicit pix we made of those two sick fucks doing the femsex thing, Michelle Schneider’s testimony before the ICC in New Kyoto, coupled with the dramatic, public failure of the operation at Ezra and the necessary arrest and discrediting of Adjudant General Bauer as a consquence of that failure, public opinion is now more strongly in favor of those two black bitches keeping those kids than it was a week ago.”

“As Sonny Kemp and my press secretary both have made me painfully aware,” the Governor of the Union replied, downing and refilling his glass.

“Then,” Baker replied,” you know we have to strike and strike now, before what happened on Twice-Born happens to us.”

All the Governor of the Union could do was snort his contempt at that suggestion.

“It’s not as ridiculous as it seems,” d’Souza assured him.

“TSID Internal Surveillance,” Baker then added,” reports small but increasingly vocal groups of citizens, male and female, in at least eleven counties, including your home constituency of Towns County—”

“Fuck,” interjected the Governor of the Union; what the people in NewAthens-Clarke County and the four counties comprising the Atlanta Three metro area had to say did matter, mattered a great deal, as did the opinions of the people in Terranova’s third largest city, the hub of the whole goddamn Fall Line.

D’Souza was very quick to remind him,”your usual way of dealing with such matters won’t work this time; in fact, your stormtrooper mentality’s part and parcel of what’s gotten you into this mess.

The Commies and their bitches continue to gather at your doorstep, and all they need to drop the hammer on your head is for you to start going Tiannimen Square on your people.”

“We‘ve planted the seed,” Baker said,”now, we only have to let it grow and flower; by that time, we will have replaced our losses from Friday’s action, easily able to fully occupy the attentions of the Commies and their friends upside, and Kishana, Natasha, and those children will be naked before us, more ways than one.”

“Those bitches will only be able to watch and gnash their teeth,” their Governor, liking this a great deal, said,”while we move in, tune those animals up live in 256-bit true color, parade them chained and naked through the streets, crucify them in a long show trial guranteed to get its share of the ratings, while they suffer in their separate prisons offworld, and we—I—will only benefit from all that publicity.”

“Twenty-four hours,” he then said,” from the moment you leave this room and go to Curtis LeMay to issue the appropriate orders to the Security Council.”

“We were thinking—” Baker started to say, his superior interrupting him:

“Any longer, and they’ll have the chance to emigrate offworld, even with all the measures we have in place to keeping them from saving up any money to finance such an escape. You’re out of this from now on, Damien, all the arrangements on your end should take care of themselves, but if not, I’ll handle them myself. Thurbert, you are to tell no one, but those who are needed for this operation; you will take personal charge of it—”

“By no one—” his Attorney General started to ask, Israel clarifying himself:

“No one is no one, Thurbert, that includes the Others, especially that bastard father of mine; take care of any of the Internal Surveillance ops who are monitoring this conversation, any means necessary.”

“Now, both of you,” the Governor of the Union said, restarting the vid, as he recharged his glass,”fuck off.”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 13:00:00 ZULU

“There are those,” now-TSID Adjutant General Michal Bauer’s holoimage said, addressing the knot of MedCom floggers gathered on the steps of the Capitol in New Athens,” who have used my sister’s perversity to make me appear to be on their side.

Let me tell you now, I am ashamed to called that rabid feral family. She is the devil incarnate, evidencing her sinfulness early in childhood. She would crawl into my bed at night, kissing me, holding my masculinity in her filthy hands, telling me I better have sex with her or she’d cry rape and have me arrested...it would’ve been her word against mine...she had already seduced our father, and you know very well who the police and the sheriffs are inclined to believe.”

“Yeah,” Carson Selkirk remarked bitterly, this fucking close to driving BPG through his own HV,”you and your butt brother, Captain Death.”

“She,” Mickey Mouse had the indecency to continue running his bonesmoker,” had one friend, two years younger than she was, and she’d always used to beat her unmercifully, make her bring her food and sodas, make her give her her toys; Juliann made her go everywhere with her, beat her if she tried to have any other friends.

One day, when I was twelve years old, I happened to walk into her room, and they were both naked; her friend was on all fours, screaming her head off, because Juliann was shoving the handle of the bathroom plunger into her cute little butt. She told me ‘little Gracey,’ was the mama and that she was only doing what ‘mamas like having their daddies do to ‛em;’ I had to spank her, and I told on her, but Gracey and Juliann both said I was lying, and I got the worst beating of my life for it by my father—”

“You lying bonesmoker,” Carson replied, favoring Bauer’s holo with the Commonwealth version of the one-fingered salute.

“She,” that bastard went on,”killed herself when she was only sixteen, after my sister stopped being her ‘ friend,’ and started preying upon an eleven-year old child;from that day forward, I stopped being a brother to her and swore I would make her account for the horrible, indecent things she does.”

He sighed, river chomper tears running down his handsome, untrustworthy face:

“She knew I would try to stop her and all her kind from preying upon other little Graceys, so she—with the aid and comfort of Guy Zellner and other ferals in men’s clothing—brazenly admitted her perversion and her uglypride in that perversity to the media, just so she could discredit me in front of my allies and impede the implentation of the Contract I made with my people when I was first elected to the House of Commons—”

“You mean,” Carson snapped,” the Contract you took out on your sister and others like them at fucking Mont Noir, you miserable, goddamn—”

“—this grandstanding, publicity-hungry bitch,” Mickey Rodent kept on going,” is still now not only trying to destroy me through her stunts, but uses the spotlight you damn liberals in the media and entertainment industries, ferals in drag such as Lyle Hammond and Juan Rivera, have so generously given her to make others believe there is nothing wrong with women being brainwashed into sodomy and perversion with other women.

And the masses believe her, especially after the Media Committee were so very kind enough to allow her to guest star on Coupling, the situation comedy of intellectually-honest manners, and promote the lie that women can be as man and wife to one another, and they dare call me a hypocrite?! ”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

His handsome rat’s face turned red for a brief moment, the murderer of Mont Noir glaring into the holocams, continuing:

“She, the mother who made her want to abuse little girls, the Commie bulldykers who even now give aid and comfort to two of their subhuman kind right here, in the home soil of our Union, aid and comfort to two vicious, predatory animals who have trapped two innocent children in the clutches of non-Canon perversion and depravity, depravity and perversion which they cannot escape without the firm guidance of a male authority figure.

They—in league with their handpicked, henpecked bitch of a so-called Governor of the Union—have carried out the destruction of Zellnersboro, the cold-blooded murder of over a quarter billion men, women and children, and are carrying out rapes, murders and acts of warfare against us all, in an all-out effort to destroy the good, the decent, the natural and the normal, the masculine temper which underpins our civilization and all its accomplishments, and they will replace it with perversion, depravity, sodomy, anarchy, poverty—both moral and economic—drug addiction, violence, and criminality.

If they should succeed, God help us all, for it will be the end of civilization; we will sink into an inescapable abyss of violence, poverty, decadence, misery, oppression, barbarism, just as those poor savages in the Communist State of Venus and the Fascist Federation of Midnight Sun have long ago, just as those proud and haughty Romans before them did, when they let themselves be seduced by women into allowing them to wear togas, drive chariots, own land and make pretty young maidens their willing concubines, while forcing their femsex slaves to participate in brutal gladitorial games.

If women are allowed to succeed once again with the prosecution of their bigoted, radfem agenda, there will be a new Dark Age, and they will, yet again, form a church which will pretend to lift us up while keeping us all down in decadence, ignorance and unending warfare, persecuting anyone who opposes them, just as Lucretia Borga had her sexual slave, Urban VIII, do to Galileo, when he refuted all the silly superstitons the breeders had promoted to keep us all shackled in unenlightenment, just as Torquemada, obeying the commands given him by his wife, his daughters, and all his whoring, syphillis-infested bulldyke Jew mistresses, did to the inoffensive Protestants and Moors of Spain.

The only difference is that, this time, there will be no real men such as Martin Luther, Henry VIII, John Calvin, Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Brian Kemp, or Benjamin Zellner, hallowed be all Their Holy Names, to save us from the women, their Catholic Chruch, their Southern Democracy and the damnation they will both lead us to, because they have stripped all the men of what made them men, shaved their legs, injected them with yogurt and estrogen, made them wear panties and skirts and open their legs like the bitches bitches have turned them al—”

“Do I make you wear a skirt, baby?” Annesha Griffin, Carson’s wife, teased, leaning her head on his left shoulder, running her fingers up and down his arm.

“Only when Mistress gives me permission to leave the house,” Carson whispered, “and, only when She takes me out in public.”

“Mmm, hmm,” Annesha said, continuing to run her fingers up and down his arm, adding,”but no panties for you, wife girlie; you’ve been bad lately, and Mistress needs to lay bare your shame for all to see.”

“The leather mini,” she added, still running her fingers down his arm. “You’ll wear that tonight, with the cute little halter top I bought you for your birthday.

We’ll go to DeLano’s, in New Athens, and while Mistress has your favorite meal, my girl will service Her underneath the table, with her skirt hiked up so everyone...”

She trailed off, Carson turning to her just as the tears started running down her cheeks, starting to say,”you know I’m only—” Carson kissing his heart and soul in reply.

As D. David Coors III, mayor of Flyntsboro, Sheriff of Bibb County, chairman of the Terranovan Libertarian Party, regular letter-writer to the Flyntsboro Telegraph, and used-car salesman, railed, ranted and foamed at the mouth on the floor of the House of Commons, stabbing out with one fat finger at Assemblywoman Cyndi McKinley, demanding to know:

“How much longer are we expected to put up with this grandstanding blackbitch—who can’t even recall the last time she even took a bath in the house she lists as her address—embarassing us in front of the worlds, distracting us from conducting our Union’s business with her efforts to divide us by race—something put to rest two hundred years ago, when we,His people, brought down their United States of America, and defeated their Communist influence attempting to destroy us, even as we struggled for our sur—”

Naturally, the rest of that trillionaire boys’ club shouted “Hear! Hear!” and “Hooray!” in response to one of their own shutting Cyndi down, before she could take him to task for his willful ignorance.

The asshole just clucked his tongue inside his ass and commented:

“She can’t even be bothered to respect her mens.”

“Tell me, Ms. McKinley, when was the last time you even set foot one,” Coors then barked at her, “on this,” Coors slapped his pulpit hard,” what you claim to be your homeworld, other than during one of your calculated public insults, your multitundinous acts of treason, against this government and the men who govern it?!”

“Take your time, baby,” he added,”come up with a good lie, like you al—”

“This is my homeworld,” Cyndi replied, staring straight down into the beady eyes of the son of a bitch, her voice measured,”my home, per—”

“Again,” Coors, slapping down on his pulpit hard enough for it to echo throughout the chamber,”again,more of her lies, more of her lies. but, what else can anyone hope to expect from a f—”

“I am telling the—” Cyndi started to insist, before that miserable bastard shouted her down with,”your daddy should’ve taught you that good girls only speak, when they are spoken to!”

Waiting until his colleagues had finished cheering him on, he then added:

“But, that’s the problem with our society, isn’t it, too many people abandoning their responsibilities, refusing to take responsibility for themselves, like serial femsex killer, Jami Lanier, who murdered her own mama, her own nine months’ pregnant mama, and not only did she try to put that off on her daddy, but she and her liberal lawyers even had the nerve to say she shouldn’t be tried as an adult, because she was still a child and didn’t kno—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Carson whispered, his voice taut, D. David Coors III going away, the two of them bathed in Judas light as they held to one another for dear life against the fury of the gathering storm.

“Major,” the captain commanding the Avalons said in Priscilla’s head,”we’ll take care of these bonesmokers, you go downlevels, there’s—”

“Will do, Captain,” the veteran FedArmy officer replied, screaming for her people to follow her deeper into Hell.

The Midnight Sun mech infantrymen descending onto all its murderous angels, awash in a sea of Commonwealth grey and FedArmy black, that sea screaming “A-VENGE! KOHOUTEEEKKK!” the dops and guards screaming ,”fuckin’ kill these goddamn bitches!” and “initiate zero-survival!” each to each, as they fought back tooth and nail, Priscilla driving the butt of her M2166 into one of their skulls, firing her M2140 nonstop at three more, driving BPG through their shielding, through them, spraying the sons of bitches all over the deck, more taking their place, dragging their victims from their squalid fucking holes, groping and fisting them, making them beg one last time, as they told them they were bored with them, that they were nothing compared to a man, and now they had to die for it, Priscilla doing her level damn best to make sure it was those motherfuckers who died for what they had done, shooting, rifle butting and pistolwhipping her way through them, screaming at the top of her lungs, leaving a trail of spent, smoking mags behind her as she charged ahead.

“Bitch!” one of them hissed through a sudden white-hot flash, Priscilla spitting out teeth, something sticky and wet running down her face; her helmet was gone, smashed to pieces by the dop now on top of her, trying to shove its tongue down her throat, telling her,”c’mon now, baby, I know you like it rough, ‘cause I’m one of your freekin’ kin—”

“My ass,” the veteran FedArmy officer snapped, shoving the barrel of her pistol into the cleavage showing through its denim coverall and mentally closing the triggering circuit, another one, clucking its tongue inside its bonesmoker, laser claws coming out of its fingernails, taunting her with,”damn, bitch, you must really hate your own fuckin’ tribe to—”

A blast from a DirtCom SPAM130 shut it the fuck up, rendering it to molecules of blood, bone, grease, and polymer in an instant, the Commonwealth Forces SNCO who’d fired that blast...Jesus God, she was a freaking dwarf, long, straight raven hair spilling down to the small of her back, her face bloody, helmet gone, her MHD shielding radiating blue, indigo, violet, black in too many spots.

A cry of pain, rage came from her throat, as another one of those motherfuckers jumped her, forcing its tongue down her throat, as it tore at her grey PCD, Priscilla spraying that bastard all over the fucking cellblock with a burst from her pistol, more of its grotesquely subhuman race charging forth to take its place.

Priscilla catching one last brief glimpse of the dwarf’s face.

A glimpse of tears diluting the blood running down her cheeks.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 13:47:00 ZULU

“Still with us, “ Stevie remarked, Enterprise, battered and broken, using his few remaining RCS thrusters to manuver himself into position to fire on Unbroken, the beaten-up Solarian Commonwealth frigate’s Raptors getting in his way.

Leaving Jami free to deal with the Casshole barely a klick off of Unbroken’s port bow, Micki jerking the frigate down, hard to starboard, and straight up, all ten of the warbird’s 203s slamming blue-hot fire into the enemy machine’s belly, explosions blossoming all along his ventral shielding, Unbroken not sticking around to see the light show, her senior pilot upcycling her, closing to less than a centimeter from the much-larger Cascadian destroyer’s starboard waist section, the Cassie upcycling the instant he saw the danger he was in, Micki doing the same, crawling up the enemy’s tailpipe, as frigate and destroyer grazed the wisp of carbon dioxide surrounding Chaudatu, Twice-Born’s moon, the Cassie turning, trying to bring his guns to bear on Unbroken, Marisa driving 203s into him in mid-pivot, fucking him good, where he hurt the most, before he fled for his worthless life.

Micki caught him six hundred kiloklicks from the moon’s farside; his shielding was in sorry shape, its bluish-violet surface broken up by way too many black spots.

“Damnit,” Jami swore, the enemy starting to turn in her direction,”fucking reinforce your MHDs, you stupid wetback son of a bitch.”

“He’s trying, Skipper,” Senior Lieutenant Michiko Fujiwara said,” but almost all his electrics are trashed , we’ve knocked out eight of his 203s, and severely damaged his Rittermark generator, MHD beam emitters and plasma-core torch.”

“He’s in no shape to fight,” Jami whispered, her body shaking uncontrollably.

“Number O—” she started to say, before the radar alarm screamed, Unbroken’s senior weaponeer interjecting a word beginning with the sixth letter of the alphabet, Jami directing the master holoproj’s view aft.

A 76-kiloton Columbia-class heavy cruiser, shot full of holes, being shot with even more holes from the Raptors snapping at his heels, his starboard nacelle gone, his MHDs near nonexistent, was driving himself straight for her frigate at 300 kilokips.

Shedding himself of escape pods as he bore down on Unbroken.

“That son of a bitch...” Executive Officer Claudia Littlejohn’s shocked voice whispered in her commander’s head, trailing off, Jami seeing for herself there weren’t any life signs registering on any of those shitcans.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 14:00:28 ZULU

“What the fuck do you think you’re—” that old woman of a so-called fleet general had the audacity to ask him as he fired every last one of the shitcans into space Selkirk’s thoughts working a fourth holdisplay which had appeared beside the fire-control repeater display, after he’d finished transferring all functions to the helm, smiling to himself as he blew out the rest of the ship, overloaded the med section’s fusion reactor, then the life-support system’s auxiliary fusion reactor as well.

All these goddamn miserable skank bitches had let him down, held him back from where he should’ve been; fuck, with useless goddamn bitches like Mecklenburg, Merriweather, Malcolm, Pedersen, Fluellen and that dried-up old hag who couldn’t even whip the pussy on the iceball down there all grabbing onto his legs like the brats they all fucking were, even Benjamin Zellner Himself, hallowed be His name, would’ve ended up spending the rest of His life fucking peeling potatoes.

They all deserved what they got and what they had coming to them in the next life.

That little bitch deserved what she was about to fucking get too.

All those years her Daddy had sacrificed for her, bought her dollies and pretty dresses to wear to basic, worked his fingers to the bone, twelve and fourteen hours a goddamn day, licking ass to climb up the ranks, just so she had a roof over her fucking head and food to shove in her fat, fucking cooter, all those years, and all the thanks he ever got from her worthless fat, black ass was for her to steal cars, fucking run the goddamn streets all hours of the night, not even bother showing up for tradoc, doing every chemical she could get her hands on, getting drunk on the liquor he fucking gave her the allowance money for, fucking licking out every skank in the goddamn Fall Line, getting her fucking legs up in the air and letting every skank in the Fall Line fucking tear that black ass up with straps that bitch probably bought for them with her Daddy’s money, making the man who only fucking brought her into this world apologize for his girl’s bad behavior every time, every goddamn time, he fucking turned around.

Selkirk aimed Enterprise’s remains dead at the little whore, at the same time cycling the port Alcubierre generator up to light speed.

“You—” Meyer opened his bonesmoker one last time to say, before his commanding general activated the bridge’s remaining internal defenses to grind him up into dogmeat, bearing down on the DirtCom frig with a Rebel yell, the same kind of Rebel yell his perverted skank bitch of a daughter screamed when she cried for more, more, more, like a whore, whore, whore every goddamn night her little Micki strapped it on her black ass.

This would be the death fuck sending both them bitches straight to Hell, along with the rest of her crew of Amazon fucking dykes and his prokboy little brother; he wouldn’t get the other one, the one who helped corrupt his little girl, but old Father Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh had that in hand, according to Horace’s last comm.

“Deus fuckin’ vult, bit—” he softly started to exult, before he upcycled Enterprise’s surviving Alcubierre jenny to max translight, set its hafnium-isomer blocks to destroy themselves in a massive IGE event, and let white light wash over him, before he fell into the darkness of a mere death.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 14:02:15 ZULU

“Bastard,” Jami whispered, as Unbroken ripped Enterprise to shreds with a volley from her 203s well short of the ship.

“Casshole’s coming about,” Claudia reported, Marisa vectoring her Raptors in against him, 203s ripping through his failing GCGs and spaceframe, instantly and immediately obliterating him as well.

More hostiles soon taking their places, a squadron of Ozzie Wu-Lungs bearing down on Unbroken with a bone in their collective teeth, Stevie immediately vectoring her birds in against them, as Marisa opened fire, and Micki jinked and burned hard during Unbroken’s intervals in norm.

“Starcraft in transit!” Claudia reported, as she deployed her 50s and MHD beam emitters to supplement the shielding, and ward off incoming Gryphons. ”Zero by twelve, one kiloklick downrange, and joining battle!”

“It’s the rest of the squadron, Skipper,” Michiko explained, as more starcraft, both Fedder and JMC, converged on the developing battlespace.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 14:10:11 ZULU

With a final scream of rage, Draco tore through the last of the dops standing between him and the fuck tank he’d been aiming for, Unbroken’s Starmarine commander not even bothering with the door or its MHD shielding, going in through the window in an explosion of mirrored glass.

“Stupid, goddamn fucking piece of pussy!” what was pretending to be the murdered Ellen de Grassi shrieked at the bruised, brutalized body of Mickey Mouse’s half sister as she-he-it, its eighty-centimeter bioplas strap fucking dripping with her innocent blood, savagely kicked her over and over. “What the fuck is it gonna take for you to realize I never fucking loved you, that you’re a bitch, a stinking-ass goddamn brainless piece of ass put here to be used and abused and thrown fucking away by everyone,especially other stinking goddamn pieces of ass like me?!”

“Isn’t that right, Draco?!” the miserable, sorry fucking bonesmoker then had the unmitigated goddamn gall to look him in the eye and fucking ask.

Before that murdering grotesquery unstrapped its fucking toy, started playing with itself, sashaying its sorry ass towards Draco, and cooed:

“ I’m gonna make ya be nasty to me, Draco bay-bay, make ya screw me ‘til it hurts, and I’m lying naked and bleeding on the floor, crying and sobbing and ashamed of the sick fuck that I am, just the way you shoulda been man enough to do for your sis—”

The veteran Commonwealth Starmarine officer didn’t even think twice about closing the triggering circuit, continuing to fire even after that motherfucker was charred, smoking blood spatter decorating the cell and his armor, even after the HMD13’s steaming hot magazine clattered empty onto the deck.

Even after the only sound left was Juliann sobbing her lover’s name over and over, as she just lay there, a broken heap of flesh and bone.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

15) A Vast Image Out Of Spiritus Mundi
“Surely, some revealation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are the words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.”
—William Bulter Yeats, “The Second Coming”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 16:27:59 ZULU

It was dark again, Chaudatu shining like a death’s head in the flame-shot, lightning-forked, novae-fired darkness above what remained of the AFEG Police Headquarters Building, Commander Draco Selkirk’s still-shaking hands struggling with the simple task of lighting up a cigarette.

He wanted a drink, Red Mike, Floodplain grain, Aquila Sunrise, Kentucky, anything with more alcohol than a bottle of minty-fresh Scope.

Jami would be pissed off at him enough for the pack of Chronic Blondes he still had from the end of the last war, after he’d promised her and his twin brother both he’d at least stop smoking reefer.

All he could say to that was sorry; she hadn’t been downside, hadn’t seen what he had just seen.

As if that were any fucking excuse, she’d been on the ground at Mont Noir, revisited Hell six days ago, when she’d taken that Casshole transport, had watched her first love’s ratbag of a son kill his sister and another little girl as well, too fucking late to stop that, even though she’d succeeded in saving 250 million other lives.

Lives that bastard Guy Zellner had just gone ahead, and taken from somewhere else.

Drac sighed smoke into Twice-Born’s frigid night, smoke adding to smoke rising from shattered buildings, wrecked military and civilian vehicles...too goddamn cold to be standing out here in an unsealed, blood-spattered suit of No.5 PCD, but he needed to breathe, more than anything.

Novae flared up from every corner of the sky, briefly obliterating darkness, the wind and sleet carrying with it the sound of gunfire from other parts of Telfair, this part of the AFEG capital quiet now, Commonwealth and allied forces having secured it, the downport and most points in between, losing entirely too many of their own doing it.

Four million, two hundred twenty-eight thousand Commonwealth, Midnight Sun and Avalon troops, including 220 of his own people lost taking this particular circle of Hell.

The latest estimate had put the number of women and girls suffering in the warrens below his feet at over fifty million, a hundredth of which were still alive, none of their killers surviving the assault.

Though, that last wasn’t quite true.

The next drag was like struggling for that first breath outside the womb, the veteran Commonwealth Starmarine officer’s hands shaking even worse.

David Griswold—now well on his way to the dock and the rope at New Kyoto—had been torturing and tormenting the woman sold to him, riding the skin of the woman who had set her free, if only for a brief season.

The woman who had been found strung upside down by a hook shoved into her, defiled and desecrated before and after death, a Bible verse burned into her forehead, the same one he’d seen scrawled in female blood on the walls of the cellblocks, the desecration no doubt continuing just as it had for Jessi thirty-three years after the search for the truth had led to her worse than death, before finally being allowed to die.

Another sigh of smoke, Drac watching Jay Todman over on Pine Street, telling the worlds what had just happened, the Mid reporter lit up by his own MHD shielding as it shifted down the spectrum back to clear.

“—the body has been positively identified,” he said into his sensorshades’ commlink,”as that of actress-comedienne Ellen de Grassi; the woman she loved, Juliann Bauer, was found three kilometers below where she’d been forced to watch her lover brutally murdered by the animal who had the presumption to think he owned her; that same animal had been abusing Juliann, while riding Ellen’s doppelganger parody, hoping that would be what broke her for good, before he finally decided to kill her.”

“Thank God,” he added,”my friend, Commonwealth Starmarine Commander Draco Selkirk got to the dop, before it succeeded in destroying every good memory she had of Ellen; God only knows, though, if she will ever heal from what’s been done to her...forced to watch her lover raped, tortured and murdered by dops, one of whom was that bastard Griswold riding Juliann’s skin, Juliann herself brutally raped and beaten, til she told Juan Rivera the lies she was ordered to tell, compounding the guilt she feels over what wasn’t her fault...”

He paused for just a second, his voice echoing in Twice-Born’s dense atmosphere, as he went on:

“Their two-year old twin daughters are all right, there’s that at least; they were staying with friends on Tom O’ Bedlam, when they went to Terranova to attend the rally in support of Kishana Winslow and her lover Natasha Gipson, with no idea at all that they’d be caught up in yet another act of spite on the part of Guy Zellner and his criminal gang.

Ellen’s going back to Tom O’ Bedlam in a box, to be buried, while men tell more lies about her, and, there’s no telling how long—if ever—it will take for Juliann to heal from this.

To paraphrase an ancient poem, she is worth our tears; the pigs, who did this to her, are not worth our merriment.

This is Jay Todman, FedNewsNet, reporting from Telfair, on Twice-Born.”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 16:33:18 ZULU

“As you can see for yourselves,” California Broadcasting Service’s Juan Rivera said to his target audience in the background, drag queens in black leather uniforms straight out of Star Trek: Final Conflict dragging a blonde woman, wearing nothing but a white teddy, matching white stockings, pink ankle straps and a lead round her neck through what was supposed to be the streets of Telfair in the foreground,”those women who fail the State are ruthlessly put to what one would think is worse than death.”

Roger Selwyn Tarrant, High Commissioner of the True Britannic Republic of Oswald, Chairman of the Executive Council of the United Federation of Sovereign Star Nations, sat in his suite in the Hilton Head Island Resort, watching what was now being portrayed as David Arnold Griswold—bound for the dock and the rope at New Kyoto—being dragged all the way to the knee-high, spike-heeled jackboots of what was supposed to have been Jameison Lanier, clad in a dominatrix’s black leather bodysuit(crotchless, of course)black fishnet stockings and collar, seated in a throne in the routunda of Skywalker Ranch’s version of Telfair City Hall, blonde, pale-white, slave girls(they had to throw in every bloody trope, didn’t they?!) clinging to both the dominatrix Lanier’s feet, as she rose up, towering over the girl Griswold grovelling at her feet, begging for forgivness, Lanier’s dop barking out,”no excuses, bitch, strip!”the girl Griswold getting up, stripping off her kit, turning round, the dop pressing one of her boots into the back of her head, forcing her face down, arse up onto the marble floor of what had been one of the sets for the long-gone sci-fi series Caligula 2525, before firing up the fuswhip, and tearing into the girl Griswold’s bare bottom, blood flowing freely down the backs of her legs, the dop then grabbing the girl Griswold by her hair, forcing her head back, shoving its bare, shaven taint right into her face, telling her,”Annie Griswold, you have failed the Family, and for that, you must serve out your days as the lowest of the low, the cunt of all other cunt, the slave of all other slaves!”

Lanier’s dop then threw the Skywalker Ranch Sally playing Griswold into the middle of the rotunda, ordering everyone gathered round the throne, even the two slave girls previously clinging to its feet to “use the ho[every sodding trope] for what she is!”all of the other dops descending on her as a single organism.

That scene shrank into the background, Rivera’s holo in the foreground, saying,”those women who have the misfortunate of failing the Family and their Communist State become the lowest of the low, falling from mistress over a harem of slobbering ferals eager to do her every bidding, to the slobbering, panting slave girl of the all other slave girls, eager to spend the rest of her life being dominated by every other feral in the worlds, used for what she is, what she deserves to be, for betraying her fellow fempervs.”

“That,” the Californio—who’d never even been within shagging distance of Vulcan—added,”was the fate Annie Griswold brought upon herself, and only someone as depraved in sentiment as she was would even think to have sympathy for her now.

For years, she lived as one of us, both to subvert the liberal, radfem Skywalker Ranch establishment, and because she hated what she was, secretly carrying out the orders of her Family, insinuating her way into the halls of power on Twice-Born, stealing an election from the rightful President of that nation, setting off a bloody civil war with the help of her non-Canon, demon lover, the traitor and terrorist Michelle Bauer, who, out of self-hatred, called herself Micheal, who, on the orders of her radfem dominants, insiniuated her way into the Terranovan Attorney General’s office and proceeded to ram a fascistic, matriarchal agenda down the throats of those who were supposedly her people.”

Knocking back a waterglass of brandy, Tarrant, via plant, switched the HV to Terrnova Media Syndicate’s Rachel English telling the worlds:

“—even after Terranova Attorney General Thurbert Clarke Baker presented hundreds of terabytes’ worth of holofootage confiscated from her house’s artificial-intelligence network featuring Winslow infliciting excessive corporal punishment,“ a holo in the background showed a girl of eight bent over a desk, her miniskirt lifted up above her waist, her bare bottom exposed to the fuswhip in the hands of a thirteen-year old dop posing as the youngest of the two Winslow girls—LaTonya, he believed, something along those lines—”upon the children she babysat, girls as young as three years of age,“ another holo, the same facsimile of NaTanya—that was her name—spanking a little girl—naked from the waist down—writhing and screaming across she-he-its lap,”footage which she exchanged over the Net with other non-Canon sexual deviants throughout the human worlds, recently-appointed Baldwin County Sheriff Culver Kidd ruled that she could not be charged with any crime, simply because she was still a child and thus unable to distinguish right from wrong.”

The HV dissolved to Baker’s holo, on the steps of the courthouse in Wesley, preaching to the throng of MedCom floggers gathered round him:

“She knew what she did was perverse, was wrong, that she was hurting and degrading her victims, yet she showed no remorse, she bragged about what she’d done to those children under oath, in open court, insisting all the while what she was doing was normal and natural for girls to do to one another; she even had the indecnecy to blame MHVid, at one point, for the brutality she inflicted upon her innocent victims.

Her victims will be scarred for life by this, yet Culver Kidd, in his infinitely liberal wisdom, has seen fit to let their abuser walk free simply because of her age, her cuteness, all the ways in which they manipulate us, and expect us to give them everything they want.

“Damn skippy!” K.C. Oliver thundered from his usual seat in the stretch end’s middle booth, David Bell, on his fifth cup of coffee prior to ordering his one slice of apple pie, chorusing,”you go, Thurbert!”

“Goddamn sick fuckin’ little bitch,” he added, banging his cup on the table to get Candace Hill to refill it,” fuckin’ rapin’ and abusin’ all ‘em lil’ children, children their parents trusted her with, and she has the damn nerve to say she’s too little to know any better.”

“Hell,” Ben Jones, seated at the two-seater booth across from them, remarked,”she’s sixteen goddamn years old, that ain’t no little; shee-it, when I was twelve years old, I was fuckin’ workin’, twelve hours a day, five days a damn week, pushin’ shoppin’ carts at the Walmart on Watson-MLK Boulevard, carrying out HVs, barbecue grills, and furniture for customers, pickin’ up trash round the store, doing all the shit ‘em lil’ bitches were too lazy to do their goddamn selves, and had to go pull a stockman off the damn lot to fuckin’ do for ‘em.”

“Same here,” David commented. “Been workin’ ever since I was ten years old, and, by God, my Daddy had taught me right from wrong by then,” he chuckled, grabbing at Candace’s ass as she refilled his coffee, K.C.’s and Ben’s,”wore out quite a few belts doin’ it, but I sure as hell wasn’t doing shit like that when I was her age.”

“Neither was I,” Ben said, swatting at Candace’s rear, as the sixteen-year old girl went back behind the line, replacing the coffeepot in the coffeemaker on the stretch end, getting back to doing her fillups, K.C. commenting:

“That’s the damn problem these days, don’t no one wanna take responsibility for themselves, for their own actions, and they ain’t got to any more, thanks to them damn radfem bulldykers; shee-it, bitches are too fucking lazy to cook supper for their kids, cram fuckin’ Quarter Pounders and french fries down their throats, and then turn around and sue MacDonald’s, ‘cause their kids are fat as pigs, saying they should be offering healthier choices on their menu.”

“Goddamn,” he added, thrusting out an arm in the general direction of the grill,”everybody knows ain’t none of this shit any good for you.”

“If they want their kids to eat right,” David remarked,”then, by God, they need to fuckin’ cook supper for their kids. Shit, they need to start taking care of their kids, period, instead of letting the HV fuckin’ babysit them!”

“Whattayew thank, Candace?!” K.C. shouted out to her, Ben commenting,”man, she’s just another Chik n’ Head at the Chik n’ Head, thinkin’ ain’t exactly what you’d call her forté, ain’t that right, sweetheart?!”

“How ‘bout a fresh pot, there, darlin’,” he added, Candace swallowing down her reply, dumping the pot she’d just fucking made not five minutes ago into the dish pit—damn good thing Sunni wasn’t here, she’d raise holy hell about fucking food costs, when she’d let Kim Bug-Eyed MacCharger and all them other chickenheaded goddamn bitches fucking give away ribeyes and T-bones left and right—taking the filter of coffee she had just ground up, shoving it into the coffeemaker on the stretch end, replacing the coffeepot underneath it and switching it on, Candace letting her attention drift back to the HV in the corner by the jukebox, TMS’ Rachel English telling the worlds:

”In a statement released early today, Governor Guy Thomas Zellner announced he would overrule the Flynt County Training and Doctrine Board’s decision to suspend twelve-year old Matthew Pate from school for three months—”

“Oh, hell yeah!” David exulted, K.C. and Ben cheering and clapping their hands out loud, K.C. commenting,” finally, someone with a half-ounca damn brains up there!”

“—when asked about his decision,” Rachel continued saying,” Governor Zellner had this to say.“

The HV now dissolved to old Gotchanow standing in front of the podium in the Hilton Head Island Resort’s press room, telling the assembled reporters:

”Nothing will be served by punishing that boy except to further scar him for the rest of his life. He did not know what he was doing, could not have known any better than what live-action online roleplaying games of the Sisterhoods variety, the filth passing itself off as entertainment on the Net, the pathetic joke that Gilda Schrenko and others have made of the Union’s training and doctrine system, and, most guilty of all, the breeder who has the gall to call herself his mother all have conspired to teach him!”

“What,” David said,”I’ve been sayin’ all along.”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 17:41:22 ZULU

She should’ve seen this coming.

Rosalind Smith held her head in her hands, trying to massage the pounding headache away, not succeeding.

The pain made her eyes pulse in their sockets, as she looked back towards Kiki Winslow’s holoprojected work record...perfect attendance, no incident reports, no complaints about her by any of her supervisors except Ken Armistead and John Davies; in fact, Gaye Ingrhum, Gwen Childree, Sally Jackson and Joyce Whittington, the Kell Plant superintendent, had all said she was the best worker they had.

Almost everyone she worked with said they liked working with her, because she pulled more than her fair share of the weight.

Almost everyone.

Darin Searcy, one of the lift drivers, in particular, had complained about her paging him on the intercom system(he had been busy trying to hit on Nastacia Abrams, according to several eyewitnesses), asking him to come do his job, and move some of the ‛71 model TMC Sundevils piling up at the end of her machine.

Rosalind turned away from the holoprojection for a few seconds, trying to relax her eyes.

She was looking at the holocube of the only family she claimed, her little brother Micheal, still presumably on the run; he, Carson and his twin brother Draco had come up together in Ezra, though their lives had taken radically different paths.

If he hadn’t been so damn pig-headed, she thought to herself, then maybe Bubba could’ve used his position to help me stop this, he’s higher up in the company than I am, or ever possibly could be.

And, now...

She looked back to the holoprojection, trying not to think about all the things that might have happened to Bubba.

She had just gotten through having a shouting match with that chickenheaded, alcoholic, fat piece of shit, not that it mattered a goddamn, it never did; she was only the HR bunny, expected to fill out accident reports, have MX-4s echoed to everyone’s plants come tax time, handle insurance claims, lie for her bosses, take the blame for their bad policy, but not actually stand up for the people she was supposed to be managing.

Kiki was still terminated, for sexual harassment, and the dubious justice of the Redmond Accords—one artifact from the late-dead USA she could’ve done without—would silence her and everyone else working here, under penalty of termination, blacklisting , denial of unemployment and other assorted pleasures.

Even Carson’s hands were pretty much tied, and he could usually be counted on to pull a jocritter out of somebody’s hat.

Sighing, she fumbled through her purse for the pack of Sierra Montanas she knew was there; she wasn’t supposed to smoke anywhere in the plant, but if John the Bottle and his fat Oreo of a line boss weren’t going to play by the fucking rules, why should she?

Shaking hands fumbled with the laser lighter, struggled to hold the cigraette still long enough to be lit, Rosalind finally succeeding, puffing it to life, sighing smoke.

All she could do, even less than what she’d been able to do for Abby...to Abby...who the fuck had she been to tell her friend to stand up for herself and not let her and Carson’s daddy hurt her anymore?

Like that had gone anywhere, Gotchanow, then a captain in the TSID, had come down, helped Mister Ricky and Sheriff Johnson send her to Wesley, who’d sent her back an empty shell, bombed out of her head on fucking drugs, not even suicide when she’d finally OD’ed, because there had been nothing left to kill.

Her fault.
She sniffled, taking another desperate drag on the cigarette in her hand, as she stared up at the ceiling and forced herself not to cry.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 18:00:06 ZULU

Word of Kiki’s subsequent termination, and his being called in at fourteen-thirty to work the balance of her shift was all over the plant, by the time Carson Selkirk had relieved Rae Liza Sharpe, and sat down at his balky replicator reluctantly spitting out playing-card sized AIs.

He missed Kiki already; he would usually relieve her at midnight, and she would have everything running smooth and her work area clean and organized.

She’d even figured out how to get this piece of shit to run more than five seconds without crashing or seizing up on her, something she’d, of course, had passed along to Carson, when he’d asked.

Now, he sat in the break room, hungry and thirsty, as he’d no time to pack a lunch, so the break room’s flat pop and overpriced toxic waste had to do.

He sat with his back to the break room’s corner window, watching Shirley Dixon nibble, nibble like a damn rat on her Star Crunch cookie, before taking a dainty, little baby sip from her thermos full of Sprite Zero; he and old Peggy had had a running bet on just how much of her sandwich Shirley would eat every night before putting it back in its paper bag.

He had been on the rotz to her for three hundred dollars TSC, before Peggy had transferred to first shift, after Mae Helen had retired....

“Goddamn,” Nastacia Abrams said, as she sat down at his table,“ you got enough fries there, Carson?”

“No,” Carson replied, picking a few of the greasy, overly salty, fried potatoes out of one of the five heaping containers on his tray, shovelling them into his mouth.

“Damn,” she added, taking a fry from one of the containers, squeezing all the molten fat out of it,“ look at all that grease comin’ outta that thang; you gonna have a heart attack eatin’ that mess, don’t you know that.”

Carson was tempted, as he swallowed some nearly-fizzless Corona Real, to tell Stacia(never freakin’ Stacy, ‛cause that was a white girl’s name) just how irrelavant his chances of myocardial infarction were to him.

“You could at least share some of ‘em fries,” Stacia went on, being her usual obnoxious self,“ with the rest of us.”

“I offered,” Carson replied, taking another handful of greasy potatoes, and shoving them down his throat.

“They probably scared you gonna eat they dam’ fangers too,” Stacia observed,“ the way you goin’ at it.”

Earnestine Lucas, the young woman(she was twenty-four now) who had taken Peggy Hardison’s place as Carson’s personal gadfly five years ago, laughed when Stacia said that.

She was going to Gibson Valley A&M again, after yet another hiatus, still trying to get her English degree; she should’ve had a damn Ph.D by now, be off teaching up in either New Athens, Atlanta Three, or even offworld, at something other than a MiniTraDoc degree mill, she was that damn smart, too smart to be wasting her time working in this legalized fucking slave-labor shithole.

But...

His attention wandered from the two of them to the rest of the break room.

His twin brother and he physically resembled other native Terranovans in every respect except one; they both had Earther ears, giving them exceptional hearing on most human worlds.

Even as old as he was, Carson could very clearly make out what even Johnathan Davis, sitting over in the far corner of the break room by the never-emptied trash cans and recyc bins, was saying to Little Woodward, Terry Battle and Avery MacGhee, his words carrying easily in Terranova’s one and a half atmospheres.

He was talking about Kiki, of course.

Wasn’t every motherfucker up in here:

“Girl had no dadgum bidness bein’ on that machine, any machine. I tol’ Ken that and John too, and they tellin’ me that Rosalind say I ain’t givin’ her enough of a chance. Goddamn, how many chances do I got to be givin’ that ho’ to fuck shit up, an’ then have Ken and John both raise hell with me when the shit be all wrong.”

“You right,” Dexter replied.

“And,” Johnathan added,“ she a damn bulldyker on top of that, hittin’ on them women—”

“Oh, yeah,” Terry Battle said. “She even had a dido and some vasaline in her pocket, so that she be ret’t’go when she saw her some—”

“Maan,” Johnathan said,“ one time, she was patting Juanita Jones on her scrawny ass, playin’ with her hair and talkin’ all this shit ‘bout if she be her girlfriend, she take care of her, made sho’ she had money in the bank, a new car, an’ pretty clothes to wear. Now you know ‘Nita freaky, even after she got married, but she tol’ that hoochie right off the bat that she wuhn’t studyin’ that bullshit.”

“She going with Felicia Burton,” Avery said,“ that whut I heard.”

“Hell yeah,” Johnathan said. “Saw dem two up at Cafe EXXXotica, over in Flyntsboro, the other night; they was hallerin’ at dem nekkid women dancin’ in the cages to play with they coochies. Man, it made me not even wanna drank my beer, just wanna get the hail up outta that muthafucker.”

Toby Pryor’s loud voice caught Carson’s attention; he, Deric, Dexter ‘s older, more drug-addled brother, Antonio Askew, Antonio Simmons, Maxine Jenkins, and KaShondra Ross were all sitting at one of the tables in the center of the break room, talking:

“Yeah, she and Rosalind be goin’ down on each other all the time,” Toby shouted,“ that’s whut Torrie MacClendon tol’ me, said they do it right in her office, when Rosalind got that do’ closed and she say she be in all dem meetin’s.”

“Yeah,” Maxine said,“ Kiki tongue be meetin’ dat coochie, that the only kinda meetin’ she havin’.”

“That whut I heard too,” Antonio Simmons said,“that Kiki come in her office, Rosalind lock the do’, tell Sherrie they be in a meetin’, and Kiki start doin’ a little striptease, like dem girls do up at the Café—they say she be wearin’ that stuff from Victo’ia Secret underneath her clothes, ‘cuz dat what turn Rosalind on—anyway, after Kiki get nekkid, she crawl around underneath Rosalind’s desk and just eat that ass out fo’ three, fo’ hour at a time.”

“I figured she was a damn femperv,” Shondra said,“ when she started hallerin’ at us women on her break, goin’ round, playin’ with our hair, lookin’ at our booties...ain’t no wonder Rosalind didn’t do shit ‛bout that.”

Now his ears picked up the characteristic high-pitched voice of the damn Pillow Lady, Inez motherfucking Troutman herself, holding court at a table in front of the pop machines:

“I wuz fallain’ Kiki home one night after we got off wurk—I had to go pick up Juanita auntie and hur little boy, and I ended up raht behind Kiki car, that blue Palamina she drive—fallaed that gurl all de way to the Valley Inn, to the Valley Inn now, and who you thank she meet up dere?”

“Rosalind,” Tiffany Respress said.

“Sho ‘nuff!” Inez Troutman, purveyor of second-hand pillows and third-rate gossip, answered. “They was huggin’ and luvin on each other, luvin’ on each other, right in fronta everabody, and they didn’t care who wuz watchin’ them; now I wuz stopped at the red light, so I saw a lot mo’ than dat, saw Rosalind and Kiki walking up to one of the rooms, and Rosalind’s hand be on Kiki’s butt all the time they walkin’ to the room, she wuz pattin’ hur on hur butt.”

Carson sighed.

“If either of y’all want the fries,” he said, getting up,“ you’re more than welcome to them.”

“I just lost my appetite,” he added, walking away from the others.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 18:16:28 ZULU

The Ozzie Wu-Lung-class destroyer fell apart, as Solarian Commonwealth Starhip Unbroken drove 203s through his MHDs and fuselage, the Dauntless-class machine flying through the expanding cloud of her enemy’s wreckage, pouncing on four AFEG Musocgee-class warbirds at once, Senior Captain Jameison Sue Lanier unnecessarily screaming for her weapons engineering officers to “take ‘em down, hard and fast!” Senior Lieutenant Stephani Aguinaldo already on it, vectoring a dozen Raptors at the four enemy ships, even as they broke formation and upcycled.

Jami caught a glimpse of a 203mm bomb-pumped graser pulse from a detonating hafnium-isomer warhead stopping one of them, before he could upcycle, scattering his hot junk across the sky of Twice-Born’s western hemisphere.

Commander Michelle Phillips upcycled her bird’s Rittermark generator, before the three remaining AFEGs could nail her, Unbroken’s second in command feverishly calculating , anticipating, putting her ship right up the ass end of one of the AFEG vehicles, the 19,000-ton strike cruiser twisting round, trying to bring his ten track-mounted 203s to bear on the smaller Commonwealth Star Force machine, Marisa spraying his sorry ass all over the surface of Twice-Born, even as Micki jinked, burned, and momentarily upcycled.

Unbroken was now fifteen klicks over the highest of the Redeemption Mountains, in the teeth of the two remaining enemy warbirds, both of them pounding the shit out of the Unbroken’s forward shielding, augmented with the MHD beam emitters at full power, wide apeture, max deflection, Marisa letting loose a rippling fusillade into their forward shielding, BPG on both sides expending themselves against MHD, as the three ships hurtled closer towards one another at 210 kilokips, Unbroken’s forward shielding radiating blue, indigo, violet, black in entirely too many—

Comcon shook some more, some more alarms screaming in Jami’s head, the skipper of the Unbroken watching one of the A Fucks sprial down into Twice-Born’s only mountain range, and impact with a violent flash against the peak of Mount Thaddeus, while the Solarian Commonwealth machine skinned the port side of the remaining AFEG, and Stevie lit him up at point-blank range with the Raptors she still had airborne.

Sent him straight to Hell where he belonged, just as the darva alarm warned Jami of hostiles less than a kiloklick off her stern.

Two Columbia-class heavies—one in Terranovan Republican Starfleet white and coal-grey, the other sporting the Loyalists’ rising phoenix and star on red—opened fire with their 203s, as they punched Preds and King Cobras.

“Turn this hunk of junk around, and fuckin’ fire as we bear!”Commanding General Jefferson Davis Selkirk screamed over comms at the Republican Union Starcraft Enterprise’s helmsman, Major Walter F. George turning the 76,000-ton behemoth round to swat the little 14.000+- ton less-than-fucking nothing out of his sky.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“Shooter,” Selkirk said, eyes fixed on that filthy little black bitch daughter of his,”tell the Preds and King Cobras to come round, and pile o—”

“Motherfuck,” the Enterprise’s fire-control officer, Captain Andre Walter, interjected, the little howler’s AKVs all streaking past the two heavy cruisers’ Preds and King Cobras at 210 kilokips, to nail both of the 76-kiloton beasts with volley after volley of 203s, before this new Enterprise could even bring his own guns to bear on her.

Selkirk grimaced, as more starcraft appeared in his sky, eleven Commie Dauntlesses, undoubtedly the rest of the squadron she’d been given command of, the squadron she wouldn’t even fucking have, if it hadn’t been for her Daddy bending over backwards to make that nasty little black ass of hers r—

“Bitch, can’t you fuckin’ drive?!” he screamed at the sorry-ass excuse for a helmsman, when more of the deck came down around his big Earther ears, even more enemy warbirds—Middie Polarises, he knew that unmistakable teardrop-shaped profile anywhere—egressing hyperspace at the same time more of his guys—two full squadrons of Columbia-class machines—joined battle over the Redeemption Mountains.

“All right, people, let’s give it to ‘em!” Draco screamed at the top of his lungs, the DNSB Panzerkampfbodeneffektfahrzeug Nashorn VIIs coming right down the throats of Unbroken 1 Troop, their 130s and 50s blazing away, StürmjägerPanzergrenadiers spilling out of their bellies, streaking towards them on their integral VT harnesses, Unbroken’s Starmarine commander walking his superheating HMD13 across the ranks of featureless black powered-armored, Stürmund Drang-loving soyboi motherfuckers, all of them delivering promises of brutal rape and even more brutal murder over company tacnet, Drac telling them to follow their Great Leader, and go to Hell, as he killed those sons of bitches by the bushel, spraying their blood, bone and grease across the next rank of sausage-sucking Teutonic butt pirates advancing on their position amongst the ruins of what had been Telfair’s business district, down all ten debris-strewn, corpse-littered lanes of Edwin G. Telfair Avenue, trying to reach the intersection of Telfair and Hartsfield Avenue, hoping to smash their way through to the downport, where the Joint Military Command were busy establishing as a command post.

These jokers took the ancient Platonnic doctrine of love of the friend’s hairy, blonde asshole only a bit further than their fellow men, housing most of the DNSB’s women in walled-off ghettos, isolated from the rest of their cities, which belonged exclusively to men, these ghettos, of course, viglantlly patrolled by the Stürmjäger boot boys and their Döppelgangerkorps to make sure their inmates were kept isolated from one another as well.

Only a bit further than the rest, the veteran Commonwealth Starmarine officer observed, thoughtlessly replacing his weapon’s spent magazine, continuing to pour it on, only a bit...ironic, isn’t it, how blonde and blue eyes in white men is a sign of the highest of the high, and, in white women, a sign of the lowest of the l—

Three flowers of nova-hot fire from Leading Starcraftman Ridda Gurtrudsdottir’s SPAM130 blackened a Nashorn’s forward shielding in one spot, before obliterating the fucking thing out in a roar of hot light, banishing Drac’s stray thoughts to the netherworld where they needed to be; the commander of 515 Starmarine Regiment smiling grimly, as he heard quite a few “scheiße!”s from the storming shitboys from Brazil, returning their fire, as it zinged past his head in the ruined MacDonald’s in which Unbroken’s 1 Troop had decided to make their momentary fire base.

Blue-hot gras plowed into the machinery behind them, shake machines, drink dispensers, soft ice cream, I-CEE and McFlurry machines all expiring in explosions of compressed air and liquid contents under immense pressure, point-of-sale terminals along the counter, one by one, bursting into flame and melting, the ketchup and sauce dispensers all spurting their contents skyward like severed arteries pumping alien ichor all over Jamie Kirk’s shiny new Starfleet-issue gimp suit, napkins from the holders at the center condiment stand taking flight like wounded birds, the holographic Ronald MacDonald adding to the somewhat ridiculous side of this firefight, when he materialized in the middle of what was left of this store inside the Liberty Mutual Building, and went into his spiel:

“Hello, boys and girls, I’m your friend, Ronald MacDonald; be sure to tell your parents you want the new Happy Meals we are offering for a limited time only.

For the future Jameison T. Kirks amongst you, each Happy Meal comes with either one of ten action figures based on the new movie Star Trek: First Contact, including the brave Commander Jamieson Tiberius Kirk, his loyal Romulan-Nietszchian first officer, Colonel Romulus Wolf, the resourceful android Major Daggit, the heroic Commander Jefferson Davis ‛King Cobra’ Archer, the curvaceous, exotic alien beauty, ship’s counselor Helene Troy, and the villainous Cylon Queen, the wicked Doma Matrix One—in her trademark, form-fitting black leather bodysuit and a working fuswhip—or one of the 1:72-scale models of either the Starcraft Climber 53D, the Mongoose attack shuttle Rio Ventura, brave and handsomeMajor Tom Parris’ personal Mongoose Mark V, Delta Flyer, Doma Matrix One’s Cylon Base Star—complete with her infamous femperv assimilation chamber—the Kulack Chancellor Martok’s Bird of Prey, the mighty Ro’tahr’ahn, or the newly-redesigned Starcraft Enterprise with time-warp capability, along with an official Starfleet application, Starfleet patches and insignae, an electronic travel edition of Star Fleet Battles Fleet General’s Edition, and, of course, regular fries, a small drink and your choice of cheeseburger, hamburger or 6-piece Chicken MacNuggets, all at a low, low price of only three hundred ninety-five dollars and thirty-two cents , Twice-Born Official Currency.”

“That’s low?!” 4/1 Troop’s Petty Officer Jaden White, at the same time she was blazing away at Nazi-kikes with her HMD13, couldn’t help but remark, adding “that’s over thirteen goppin’ solarii,” while the clown prince of the human race’s largest and oldest fast-food chain ignored her, expounded on just what his empire of grease and carcinogens had to offer the girls:

“For girls, we have a special Barbi Gurl Happy Meal, featuring either a Baby Barbi Gurl, a Kindergarten Barbi Gurl, a Fairy Princess Barbi Gurl, a Teenage Cheerleader Barbi Gurl—who has as much difficulty with math as I know you girlsdo—a Sorority Girl Barbi Gurl, complete with paddle, a Nurse Barbi Gurl, a Weather Girl Barbi Gurl, a Pop Diva Barbi Gurl, a Lingerie Model Barbi Gurl, a Indoctrinator Barbi Gurl—which also includes a working fuswhip and a riding crop for the State Drill Mistress Barbi Gurl—or the ever-popular Bondage and Discipline Barbi Gurl, wearing a form-fitting black leather bikini, shackles, and collar, and comes complete with whipping post, working fuswhips and pretty little Bondage and Discipline Skipper Gurl, who she babysits, as they take turns doing what girls like d—”

Ronald MacDonald died a well-deserved death at the hands of the jackboot boys he had helped keep in power, Drac remembering, only too fucking well, how Jeff and Cam used to like playing with “Abby’s” Sorority Girl and B&D Barbi Gurl dolls as much as they liked playing with Jeff’s Star Trek toys; man, did Jeff ever lay a beating on both the twins, after Drac had taken his older brother’s Jimmy the Jerk doll and welded his nano-powered action ass to a plastic stand before planting the boot of his Vash the Stampede action figure, gun in hand ready to do some real fucking justice, on the fascsimile Billy Montana’s sculpted polymer chest.

He chuckled, in spite of himself and the situation, two more Nashorns going up in a blaze, as he stood up, his HMD13 in one hand, his PDMD13 in the other, advancing towards the enemy, both weapons blazing hot, screaming for the rest of 1 Troop to follow.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 20:06:19 ZULU

“It was the most degrading expirience of my entire life,” pouted pretty little Ensign Marilyn Issacs of the United Federation of Planets Starfleet, to the two JAG officers investigating her made-up claim of sexual harassment against Starcraft Enterprise’s new CAG, Major “Uncle” Tom Parris—portrayed the never-aging, beautifully-ebon, obnoxiously-athletic, proudly homosexual Duncan Apollo McNeil—on the repeat of the Star Trek season premiere, “Crossing the Line,” which, as a curtain raiser, featured the initiation ceremony for all new Mongoose pilots, in which Marilyn had been forced to slow dance with, and rub up against another female Mongoose pilot, Leftenant Elizabeth “Skates” Hawkes, who’d just gotten through telling both the JAG officers and the seemingly powerless to do a gopping thing Commander Jameison T. Kirk how much of a whiny, incompetent bitch Marilyn was, a sentiment the female Starfleet JAG officer—in red leather Orion Starfleet bustier and miniskirt—repeated to her male partner, who, of course, loved women so much he couldn’t possibly see how irredeemably wicked they all were.

Sighing, Tarrant shook his head, recharging his glass of brandy, sighing again, as Marilyn was now in her quarters with two other women, both with blonde, butch haircuts, one of them in an Starfleet female general’s uniform—one-piece old-gold leather catsuit with spike heeled boots, medals and a dog collar round her neck—that one being Dirk Jameison’s deadliest rival, Lieutenant General Helena Bichayev(they do love recycling those names, don’t they?!), who had once prosecuted the good commander for losing a ship, and ejecting his bit of rumpy-pumpy, Ben Finnegan, into space in the ancient episode “Courtmarital.”

The other one was Mistress Trina Greystoke, representing the planet Capricorn on the Federation Council, crossing her red-booted legs as she sat on the desk, that action serving to raise the hem of her red leather dress ever so slightly to reveal just a glimpse of red-leather knickers; sliding her tongue across her red-painted lips, Mistress Trina—alias wicked Cylon infiltrator Six of Nine—trilled:

“Discrediting a hero of the Judassian Wars will serve to further advance our cause of total assimilation. Our Supreme Mistress will be most pleased by your actions, my pretty little one.”

She then patted Marilyn on her gold leather-miniskirted bottom, Marilyn lowering her blonde head ever so submissively, whispering:

“This drone lives only to be of service to the Collective Sisterhood, my Mistress.”

“Then,” Bichayev ordered,”you may serve us by assimilating your sister-to-be.”

At that point a harsh light shone up into her face—what was known in the biz as the Baltar Effect—as Star Trek went to commerical.

Tarrant didn’t know exactly when science fiction had gone from being genuinelly speculative fiction offering hope for—or warning of—the future to being just another canvas on which his kind painted women in such garish colors.

Perhaps, that had always been the way it had been, with the speculation, the warning, and the hope mere aberrations amongst the endless offerings of tits and arse being whipped and distorted by either women or the aliens which invariably represented women, before being “saved” by the noble and good knights in Shining Gundams and well-hung photon torpedos doing a bit of whipping and distorting of their own...

The Chairman of the Executive Council had just as little clue just when, precisely, the change had come over him.

From the time he could walk, he believed in the Work, believed his race were meant to be and those such as his sister Ginneha were the Gollums of the known world, fit only to be abused and distorted for fleeting kicks before finally being snuffed for everyone’s good all round, knowing full well all the while he believed in lies, believing still the lies were necessary.

He downed the waterglass in one go, shaking hands pouring from the bottle beside his chair.

There was no return passage across the Rubicon, but there was no hope of standing against the Others, not after a long lifetime given over to the Work, a lifetime of blood on his hands and violence against the truth, against those who’d never meant his kind any harm, save by just being alive.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 20:23:18 ZULU

“Just a buncha offworlders makin’ more trouble for us, that’s all that is,” Joe Keane shouted to the store in general.

“’Zactly,” K.C., still here, still at that middle booth with David, Joe, Joe’s son Brian, and Jim Hunter, remarked. “That’s all that recall bullshit’s about, just a few radfems, their sojus soybois, an’ some offworld crisis actors bankrolled by Gilda and Killer Cyndi, don’t even represent you or me, just wanna get rid of our Governor, cuz he done decided he don’t wanna put up with their shit no more.”

“That,” Billy Raines, sitting at the stretch end’s last booth, said,”is exactly what it is; goddamn Commies and Middies and a few of the ferals here, tryin’ to bring us down the way they brought down the Twice-Borns.”

“That’s exactly what’s gonna happen,” Calvin Hobbes, taking his usual hour and a half to drink his coffee before maybe asking for something to eat, commented,”sure as hell. Guy Zellner’s already said they’ve infiltrated the Ministry of State, trying to get Amendment 42 ratified, and I know, for a damn fact, the TSID ain’t got all of ‘em, ‘specially if a lot of them men at the Ministry of State aren’t really men atall, if you catch my drift.”

“I know exactly what you mean, Calvin,” Jim spoke up. “ When ‘em radfems up there find out that the majority of the Terranovan people think old Gotchanow’s doin’ just fine where he’s at, they’re gonna purge the AIs, put out the results they wanna put out—”

“And, when the TSID catches ‘em in the act again,” Calvin finished,”they’re gonna start up a civil war here, just like they did on Twice-Born; how convenient for them that the Commies and their allies are all sitting up there above our heads, just waitin’ to come save the day like they did on TB.”

“Accomplishing by force,” Brian, diverting his attention from another idea for yet another idiotic invention he was scrawling onto a napkin, remarked,”what they couldn’t by infiltration an’ subversion.

How ‘bout some more coffee there, Candace?”

“Yeah, darlin’,” Joe said condescendingly, Candace entirelly too aware of all four of his beady little eyes focussed on her rear end, as she reached for the coffeepot on the stretch end,”my cup seems to have a hole in the bottom of it.”

“Heat mine up while you’re at it,” K.C. added, Jim telling her,”how ‘bout a slice of that softshell pie, and make it a big slice, I mean a big slice, somethin’ I can actually see payin’ three seventy-five for; man, the last time I come in here and asked for a slice of softshell pie, goddamn slice was so tiny, didn’t even fill my hollow tooth.”

“Goddamn,” K.C. said, staring up at the HV, everyone else on the stretch end turning to face the same direction. “Y’all believe that shit?!”

“Read ‘bout it,” David said,”in the afternoon update when I was here eariler.”

“And, y’all,“ K.C. said to Candace, “think you’re like us...maaaann...”

On, HV, footage of female soccer players on their knees to other female soccer players, the ones on their knees taking off their t-shirts and bras, their tits bouncing up and down as they lowered their heads, the ones standing over them pissing and shitting on them, dumping garbage on them afterwards, grabbing them by their hair and forcing them to give lip, TMS’ Suzann Lawler telling them:

“This footage of the hazing ritual—inflicted annually by the upperclassmen on the Pioneers’ soccer team upon the newest members of the squad—was obtained from the National Police’s Bibb County Command by Terranova Media Syndicate.

Terranova Wesleyan officials continue, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to deny such a degrading, humiliating rite of passage takes place on their campus, while, at the same time, initiating proceedings to expel the female victims of the hazing, Terranova Wesleyan President Norah Kizer defending this action in an interview with TMS News’ Carolyn Minh earlier today:”

A middle aged blonde woman in a pinstriped skirt and white blouse appeared on HV just long enough to say:

“They broke the code of sisterhood, and that such acts of outright betrayal will not be tolerated at Terranova Wesleyan College.“

“I’ll be goddamned,” David commented, Suzann Lawler continuing:

“The father of nineteen-year old Shannen Melendi, National Policeman First Class John Melendi, who pressed charges against the girls involved in the hazing, has told TMS News that he will go to the Board of Regents in New Athens to demand Kizer’s immediate removal from the presidency of Terranova Wesleyan College, while Bibb County Sheriff D. David Coors III, had this to say concerning yet another example of the ugly way girls treat other girls:”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 20:28:06 ZULU

“We,” D. David Coors III, Sheriff of Bibb County, mayor of Flynstboro, used-car salesman extrodinaire, said from the parlor of his hideously expensive home in New Athens’ Dan River Village,”have done everything humanly possible to give them the same opportunities we men have, and, this is what you ferals have chosen to do with those opportunities, what happens every time we men leave you to your own devices; as the father of evolutionary gyneopsychology, Doctor Randall Terry himself, once said before the American Congress over two centuries ago,’ give a bitch an education, and she will teach you the magnitude of the error of your ways.’

This incident,” Coors said, Rosalind sitting on the couch in her apartment, feet on the coffee table, watching the news as she picked at her dinner,”the tragedy narrowly averted at Ezra, the femsex-slave ring operating in another of our institutions of higher training and doctrine turned over to them, the bloodbath at Anderson Basic Training Center, all these have most assuredly taught us the magnitude of the error of our ways.”

Mitzi, her pet bluetail cat, leapt up from her perch on the other end of the couch and onto Rosalind’s lap, the animal humming softly as Rosalind gently stroked her silver-grey fur., Mitzi licking the hand stroking her fur, Rosalind running the animal’s cobalt-blue tail through her other hand, prompting Mitzi to brush it across Rosalind’s lips.

A pounding on the door of her apartment startled both of them, Rosalind shooting bolt upright, Mitzi running for cover with a yowling and a raising of fur, as a man’s voice shouted from outside, “National Police!Open upat once!”

What the hell could the Gnats possibly want?! Rosalind wondered, walking over to the door and opening it.

A combat-armoured National Policeman, wearing a lieutenant’s single silver bar on his helmet and collar, stood in front of her, with at least thirty other National Policemen standing directly behind him.

“I have a warrant authorizing my men and myself to search your residence,” Alridge went on,“ for property rightfully belonging to Excelsior Commercial Products, Incorporated, as per the Brian P. Kemp Employee Separation and Corporate Personhood Act, to remove it from your residence, and to return it to Excelsior. You will cooperate with us in our efforts; failure to cooperate will result in an arrest for obstruction of justice and immediate femrehab.”

“What the fuck is this—” Rosalind started to ask, Alridge telling her:

“That is a matter of Union security.”

“I am required to inform you,” Alridge then added,“ that , as per the Employee Separation and Corporate Personhood Security Act, and the 2024 Redmond Accords—”

“Separation?!” Rosalind getting at least that much. “What the f—”

The Gnat lieutenant steamrolled right over her:

“—we are authorized to seize your safe-deposit box and all your accounts at Union Central Bank & Trust, and confiscate all monies paid to you by Excelsior Commercial Products, Incorporated for all pay periods during which you were employed by said Excelsior Commercial Products, Incorporated.”

“We won’t be long; carry on as if we weren’t even here,” he added, he and his men walking past her to begin their search.

Numbly, Rosalind sat back down on the sofa, her shaking blue-tailed cat, terrified of the men now turning the apartment upside down, curling up in her lap.

Rosalind absently stroked the cat, as she saw a National Policeman come into the living room and take her twenty-, thirty-, forty-, and fifty-year award plaques down from the top shelf, along with group holos taken from the last three perfect-attendance dinners; more precisely, the Gnat just swept all of them down off of the top shelf into a garbage bag, not caring if he broke anything in the process.

Alridge came back into the kitchen.

“You were given a thirty-five hundred dollar TSC gift certificate for Nash’s Department Stores,” he said,“ as your twenty-year gift, as well as a total of five thousand dollars TSC in gift certificates for Wal-Mart Stores, Incorporated, given to you by Excelsior Commercial Products, Incorporated for your perfect attendance record.”

“I already spent them,” Rosalind replied.

“Then,” Alridge informed,“ by law, we can take the cash value of those gift certificates from your bank account—”

“I need that money!” Rosalind objected.

Alridge spat in her face.

“You should’ve thought of that,” the National Police lieutenant replied coldly,“ before you decided to be a filthy, two-faced, goddamn fuckin’ bulldyker.”

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 20:50:00 ZULU

“Have yo’ tention, please,” Ken Armistead said, his voice little more than a whisper, even to Carson’s ears, as he stood in front of the break room to address everyone in his department,“ have yo’ tention.”

Gradually, the assembled employees quieted down.

“As y’all kno’ by now,” Ken said, “Kiki Winslow, an’ Roz Smith both been fired, an’ about time, I say.”

Everyone else was talking quietly amongst themselves.

“Now,” Ken added,“ I kno’ they been a lotta rumor goin’ round as to whut happen, but, it like dis: This afternoon, John and I decided to terminate Kiki; it was several thangs that made us agree on terminating her.”

Carson’s co-workers looked at him, and he looked back at them; that had been the order he’d run the other night, after the tradoc busses, after which he’d helped Kiki set up for the production run of Roadsters.

“—scrap an’ finished goods costin’ over a hunner thousand dolla,” Ken said, raising his voice slightly above its incongrous whisper,“were discovered in Kiki house by the National Po-lice and Excelsio’ management, when they searched it this afternoon.”

“How, pray tell, did she smuggle that out of the facility, past Security and the cams?!”Carson commented nastily. “One piece at a time in her fucking lunch box?!”

“The main reason tho’,” Ken said, not deigning to explain the logistics of the alleged thefts,“why she fired wuz fo’ sexual harassment.

Last night, she co’nered Alicia Stephens by the women’s bathrooms durin’ fust break...I’m not gonna go into no details, but one thang led to another, and Kiki tol’ Alicia ‘you had better gimme some, or I’m gonna beat yo’ ass down.’ Alicia, who in protective custody rite now, by the way, took her complaint to Rosalind, and, when Rosalind didn’t do nothin’, she came to me ‘bout it, an’ I call John, an’ he did somthin’ ‘bout it.”

He paused, letting his employees buzz amongst themselves, before resuming:

“When we tol’ her she was terminated, she went to Rosalind, who voided her termination and threatened to have me terminated as well—”

“Yes, it is,” Ken replied. “It seem Rosalind been havin’ non-Canon sexual relations with several of the feral who work out heah; a lotta of ‘em she make have sex with her. Kiki be one of her lil’ gurlie-gurl; you see, every time Rosalind say she be in one of her meetin’s, she really be making Kiki go down on her, and, in exchange, Rosalind hep Kiki out on the job.”

“Nasty-ass bitch,” Darin Searcy commented.

“Rosalind do that,” Ken added,“ with all her gurls, includin’ Ariel Dixon, and Felicia Burton too.”

Carson shot a glance over to Carethia James, sitting in a corner all by herself, a look of fear in her eyes.

Carson also noticed Johnathan Davis covertly looking at her, thinking the thoughts he usually thought, the son of a bitch.

“It ain’t over with,” Ken said. “The company’s lawyers, up in New Athens, informed John today that Rosalind had filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging wrongful termination and discrimination.”

“Bitch,” Johnathan said.

“Man,” Darin chroused,“ that whut they always do when a man don’t give ‘em their way, say they being discriminated against, or that we sexually harass dem; that how they got rid of Bob Ackersley last year, zact same way.”

“You rite, Tin Man,” Ken chorused,“ you right, an’ Kiki Winslow gonna do the same thang; she suin’ us in New Athens-Clarke County Sheriff’s Co’t, got herself a high-price New Athens lawyer like her woman do, and she sayin’ we sexually harassed her, discriminated ‘ginst her, an’ fired her for no reason.”

“You rite, Johnathan,” Ken said.“Jus’ like doze goddam’ Commies and they bitches on planet gonna take Horace’s chillun from him, an’ give him to that bulldyker to raise.”

“Everathang run by dem muthfuckin’ radfm bulldykers,” Corneilius Clarke, one of the chickenheaded lift drivers, observed.

“Dam’ sho’ is,” Ken said.

“Dey tryin’ to take away our rights, brang down the gov’ment,” Darin said,“ and make us take o’ders from ol’ Lilith Babylon hurself; Thurbert Baker wuz on HV, talkin’ ‘bout that to Lyle Hammond this mo’nin’.”

“You rite,” Ken said.

“You rite,” he repeated, as Whore Ass fucking Rumph, Major goddamn Rat Bastard in the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate, walked into the break room, saying, without preamble:

“This comes di-rectly from New Athens.

The situation here has been declared a matter of Union security by order of Governor Zellner himself. Any of you—any,” he looked dead into his half-brother’s eyes when he said this,”of you—who even so much as says ‘hey’ to either of ‛em bitches, their lawyers, or anyone even remotely associated with them will be arrested, summarily executed for treason, and damned eternally as one of them, under the authority of the Union Security Act.”

“If you don’t,” he had the nerve to threaten him,”you and she both will be taught better.”

“Is that clear?!” he asked him.

“Do what you have to do, Whore Ass,” Carson replied, his voice so cold even he didn’t recognize it.

“I’ll do the same,” he finished.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Another enemy machine fell from the sky and went down in a flash somewhere in the Redeemption Mountains of Twice-Born.

Micki briefly upcycled Unbroken, charging inside the guns of another heavy cruiser, and Jami screaming for her gunner to open fire, even as the first 203s tore through his shielding and his saucer.

Comcon shook, and went dark a moment, Ariel rattling off damage, status and casualties...three dead, all of them from her engineering team, ten wounded, also engineering team.

No word yet as to how many of the frigate’s Starmarines had been killed or wounded, though Michiko had told her the fighting they’d been through so far had been even more bloody than it had been up here, and it still wasn’t over for them; the squadron’s surviving Starmarines had been ordered deployed to Telfair’s North Hill neigborhood, the worst and most heavily-defended of the AFEG capital’s ghettos, assisting the Commonwealth, Mid, and Avalon troops trying to liberate its inmates against overwhelming odds and steadily mounting casaulties.

She couldn’t even pray for her uncle or his people right now, she had all those Columbia-class ships to bring down, almost a full wing of them, plus their Predators and King Cobras, against two squadrons of Commonwealth frigates and Midnight Sun destroyers.

Almost a full wing minus four more of the bastards, the one they’d been pounding, the one who’d just pounded them, and two others all went up like suns in the twilight between another three-hour day and another three hours of night on this frozen, godforsaken shithole planet, and Micki turned, burned, upcycled, and took Unbroken back into the fight, 203s from primary massdrivers and Raptors streaking towards one Yanker and two Birdbrain machines slewing round on their RCS thrusters to bring their guns to bear on the frigate jinking, burning, momentarily upcycling, before they had a chance to fire on her.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 21:26:04 ZULU

Selkirk screamed, as that goddamn little bitch danced out of his reach again, her 203s smashing through his brand-new Enterprise’s forward shielding, through the MHD beam’s forward emitters, through the saucer, streaking fiery blue bolts ripping through stem to stern, fucking him up even worse, McCoy cursing at George :

“Bitch, fuckin’ don’t just stand there with your dick in your goddamn hands, fuckin’ get after that fuckin’ black bitch!”

Enterprise’s helmsman doing what he was told, even as his deck shook itself to pieces, the Columbia-class heavy cruiser upcycling, catching up with that vicious little howler’s black ass a hundred klicks over Twice-Born, McCoy and Selkirk both screaming for Walter to open fire, 203s already streaking forth from the heavy’s thirty-five working primary massdrivers to send her and all her fucking bitches down to where they all fucking burned b—

“Oh, shit!”interjected Walter, as Unbroken, at the very last instant, wheeled round on her RCS thrusters, and pumped 203s right down the Enterprise’s throat, George already jinking, burning, upcycling, knowing it was going to be half an instant too late.

“Stand by, monkeybones,” Selkirk said over comms,”we’re gonna take it up the—”

Next thing the Chairman of the Union Security Council knew, he was staring up at the ceiling, the back of his head throbbing, wet and sticky, as was his nose; his mouth tasted chalky and metallic, Selkirk spitting blood and implanted teeth out of his mouth, as he struggled...to float, along with his teeth, blood and snot, Major Scott Montgomery, hovering over his station, starting to say,”sir, superdiamagnetics on this deck are of—”

“Fuck that!” McCoy, his gold management team jersey ripped to shit, blood running his face, his more than few of his own teeth missing, spat back. “Where the hell is that goddamn bitch ?!”

“Rejoining the main engagement, Coloniel,” Enterprise’s science officer, Major Leopold Speck replied,”zero by twenty-three, eighty-five and a half klicks downrange.”

“Then, “ Malone replied,” that’s where we need to be.”

“Intercept plotted,” George replied. “Upcycling, 300 hertz.”

Selkirk instantly liking this new ship and his crew.

15 NOVEMBER, 2276 22:04:26 ZULU

“Doze bitches gotta di—” was all the AFEG Army Striker master sergeant had time to get out, before ten BPG rounds from Drac’s HMD13 punched through his shielding, and sprayed bits of fat, black motherfucker all over the place, his running buddies not needing to hear their late sergeant’s order to know what he’d wanted them to do, Rebel yells by the dozen assaulting the Commonwealth Starmarine officer’s eardrums, as they turned Bradbury’s hounds loose from their breakaway leads, the mechanoids bounding toward the Commonwealth Starmarines, double rows of monofilament teeth dripping with slaver.

The A Fucks took cover behind the hounds, and fired, Ridda and 1/1 Troop’s other gunner, Starcraftman Marianne Trethgowan, both stepping up and cutting loose with their weapons, spitting out a total of six 9.59kT bomb-pumped graser warheads every second, splattering aerogel, TDU composite, and polymer blood all over the ferrocrete.

The two women advanced behind the fire of their superheating weapons, Drac and the rest of 1/1 Troop falling into lockstep between them, firing as their integral VT harnesses propelled them forward, the Strikers trying desperately to fall back, firing as they retreated, but they couldn’t open the range, and it was all bayonets and rifle butts from there.

Drac drove the butt of his HMD into the faceplate of an AFEG corporal, at the same time Unbroken’s Starmarine commander fired the PDMD in his left hand at a half dozen more trying to jump on Ridda and tear her suit off of her; Ridda shoved her SPAM130 into the gut of a man-mountain of a Twice-Born, closing the triggering circuit, just when he got this close to slashing open her PCD with his laser talons.

Sumbitch vaporized in a bright, blue flash, most of the 155’s BPG passing through where he’d been to clear a path three deep in front of her, 2/1 Troop’s Petty Officer Jewel McKenna banging away with her HMD13, further clearing Ridda’s path of A Fucks long enough for her to reload.

Drac pistolwhipped an AFEG Striker sporting lieutenant’s bars, smashing through his faceplate and scattering his teeth, blood and snot all over the North Hill, the HMD13 in the Starmarine officer’s right hand burning through the gauntlet as it kept spitting out tanc to splash more AFEGs.

He could see past them now, women, girls, little babies, all pouring out of their squalid, prison-brick government-built arcos, and running like hell through the streets, alleys and backways of Telfair’s worst ghetto, a bright blue ‘64 Sierra Palomino convertible running them down, a gangerboy in the back seats working a pintle-mounted 50mm tribarrel, as tortured bass drivers boomed out Master MC Axle Greeze & de Luv Gunz’s “Pus-Say Rap:”

A shot from Ridda’s SPAM130 quickly overloaded the car’s front bumperfield, rigged up to serve as MHD shielding, and exploded the Palomino in a ball of white-hot fire, one of the ripperboys thrown clear of the vehicle scrambling to his feet, grabbing up his Palmer/Walker Slammer and started raising it towards Marianne, before a single BPG from Drac’s HMD13 took off the top of his knappy white head.

Another one, a fucking nine-year old kid with most of his hideously-expensive Sovereign Rifle Combat League-brand merchandise burned away, showed off his limited vocabulary of curse words, as he cranked off rounds from a Barrett DSH double-barrelled 50mm heavy massdriver twice as big as he was.

This anklebiting little ratbag son of a bitch had been the one working the 50mm tribarrel; he just looked so goddamn much older behind that weapon, but he could see just how chubby-cheeked munchkin-like he was, someone of whom it was assumed couldn’t even form the intent to commit murder or acts of terrorism, simply because he still believed in Satan Claws and the Easter Beast.

Hell, that DSH he was holding in his hands, as he smiled and imagined Drac bloody dead, why that was just like little Thurbert Clarke Baker bringing his fucking Pocket Monster cards to basic with him.

I fucking hated tradoc, thought the veteran Commonwealth Starmarine commander, letting go with a ten round burst which sent the little bastard to Hell with a smile on his face.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

16) And, the Moon Is Full And Bright“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”—Revealation 6:12(KJV)

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 00:02:00 ZULU

Second sunset had occurred several hours ago, and Judas had risen, red and bloated, from behind the GEICO building across Ocmulgee East Boulevard, when Carson Selkirk walked out of the tradesman’s entrance of Excelsior’s Ocmulgee East Plant.

It had been his Grandmere Julia, he believed, who had told him about the hunter’s moon, when he had been five or six...what was it...a portent of death, yeah, that was it...old legend, came all the way from Earth with the rest of the nonsense brought by both the First Colonists, and the losers of the Tricentennial War.

Local legend had it that the rising of old Judas, named after that second-most infamous of backstabbers, opened the gateway between the real world and the underworld, the hell of the ancient tales, letting loose the souls of the damned, as well as various demons, including the Old Boy himself; it was also said that anyone who believed and performed the proper ritual at the precise moment Delta Trianguli’s second planet rose in the night sky would gain tremendous supernatural powers.

Humans had been on Terranova almost two centuries, more than long enough for them to turn the legend of the hunter’s moon into some halfassed fairy tale concerning Delta Trianguli’s second planet’s roughly eight-year orbital cycle round its parent suns, the completion of which brought it into periapsis with Terranova.

A fairy tale which those in power had used most effectively to burn Ariel Dixon at the stake—in effigy now, if no longer in fact—all good people throughout the Fall Line saying all sorts of shit about her, the same kind of damn lies they were telling about Felicia Burton all these years, dildos, beating up on Merdith Wallace, even rumors about her raping and murdering Meredith in the park up in Freeman Lang eight years ago, and making it look like a suicide.

Carson sighed, shaking his head, as he walked towards his eight-wheeled pickup; he saw Felicia and her lover, Carethia James, out of the corner of his eye.

The slight blonde woman was held the short, slender black girl’s hand in hers; Retha was five months along(in what the medical profession still insisted on calling her first three months of pregnancy, in spite of Terranova’s one and a half gees prolonging the textbook gestation period by fourteen to eighteen weeks) thanks to that low-life bastard Johnathan Davis and his buddies using Stacia Abrams’ apartment to viciously, relentlessly gang rape both of them.

Bastards had tied Stacia to a chair, and made her watch.

Johnathan and his buddy, that jive-talking sack of shit, Miguel Troupe, had bragged about it to Ken in the production office a little over a month ago, after a few too many belts of Kentucky, redbud, and bug juice, though, of course, everyone still believed what had been rumoured to have happened, that Stacia had lent the two women her spare room, and Felicia had brutalized Retha with a strap.

He watched, as Felicia gently patted Retha’s belly(she was just now beginning to show); the goddamn Yankers had taken her little one away from her three years ago, claiming all sorts of bullshit, from “gender dysphoria” to outright saying Felicia had raped and abused Dawn Marie.

Never, not in a million fucking years, she’d loved that little girl too goddamn much.

The Yanker kangaroo-court system had awarded custody of her daughter to the man who had raped her into Felicia’s womb nine years before, Nathaniel Duncan, serving a life term at Wesley for raping and murdering his eight-months(chronologically) pregnant wife, Elizabeth.

The social workers had claimed Nate could provide a more positive and loving enviroment in a “non-femsex world” for that poor little girl; Felicia had even been denied visitation rights, in spite of the fact that ninety-nine and a half dollars TSC a week out of the pittance she made in this shithole(roughly twenty percent her pay after taxes and insurance) was being garnished by MiniHumRes for child support.

She couldn’t bear any more children of her own; the year after Dawn Marie had been born, Felicia had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, so they’d burned out her ovaries and her uterus, but Ann Harris’ little girl, Elyse, had accepted her as her second mom, and Felicia loved that girl as much as she loved Ann.

He sighed cold smoke into the sky.Every little bird that flew by seemed to want to shit on Felicia; Judas had shone red and bloated that night too, when that miserable goddamn drunkard had slammed his piece of shit car into Ann’s at over 700 kph…two years ago tonight, as a matter of fact....she and Elyse had come to pick Felicia up from work, not a hell of a lot left of either one of them, not at that speed.

The repulsive, alcoholic son of a bitch had, of course, walked away from the accident without a scratch, goddamn DA wouldn’t even fucking consider bringing charges against him, he and the fucking Gnats both claiming Ann had been at fault.

He overheard some of what Felicia was saying to her lover.

Retha didn’t believe in abortion, and, she wanted to finish college, something the powers that be simply would not allow, as girls who got pregnant were supposed to, somehow or another, be forced out of tradoc /college and onto welfare for all eternity, all three fates being her fault, of course; the Common Legislature had added one more turn of the screw, with their new law denying tradoc dropouts and welfare recipients the right to drive, a measure grey-suited, grim visaged fucking Death and the rest of that crew up in New Athens had aimed squarely at women.

Retha was catching hell for both trying to have her baby and finish up her degree, and she was doubting herself, while Felicia was trying to reassure her that she would be there for both Retha and the baby, that she knew what she was going through, because, of course, she did; Nate had gotten her pregnant at seventeen, and Felicia worked twice as hard to graduate from tradoc, insisted on going to college and raising her child, in spite of all that, and, she had come out, all three things mutually assuring her bad reputation.

Carson sighed, the sigh giving way to racking coughs.

His lungs already felt as if they were solid rock, his breathing increasingly laboured as the last air sacs burst and the last few opened bronchial passages became clogged.

No cure, not even a hope of transplant or cybernetic replacement, as the disease also attacked the sheaths of the pulminary nerves.

Maybe it was his own imminent death which gave him this feeling of forebodding, of things falling apart, a feeling only exacerbated by Judas shining so red and big in the night sky; he never admitted to superstition, but the signs were there.

One of those signs had been had happened tonight, with Kiki and Smitty’s older sister, the fucking lies about what they supposedly did to one another already running round the plant over and over, the things they supposedly had done—between themselves and to any and every woman out at the plant who’d ever looked at a man crosseyed—getting sicker and more twisted with each retelling.

Only Carson knew Roz would never have come out, why she would never, ever take that risk.

“What up with you, Carson?” that fat fuck who called himself a supervisor asked, jarring him out of his funk.

“He,” he added,”and the rest of us mens...well, we all gonna do what we gotta do too.”

“That’s fine,” was all Carson would say to that.

“By the way, Ken Doll,” he asked, looking back up at Judas,“ are you familiar with the old Earth legend of the hunter’s moon?”

“Canon say,” Ken replied,“ the end of the world s’posed to come when the moon turn to blood.”

“Something like that,” Carson said softly, nodding his head, as he walked away from his former line boss, toward his pickup.

“Something like that,” he repeated to himself.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 02:28:18 ZULU

Kiki couldn’t sleep.

She was in the Chik n’ Waffle on Terranova 441 in Wesley, staring over her cup of black coffee; she didn’t want to wake Tasha or the kids.

Least she had them, and thank God for that too.

It had been a rough couple of months , and it seemed that it was only the beginning of her troubles; the news, Excelsior’s version of it, had beaten her back to Wesley; they were claiming she ran the wrong order(which she didn’t), that she stole over a hundred kay worth of scrap and finished goods, in spite of all the cams and Security everywhere in the plant, and she meant every where.

Worst of all, Alicia supposedly had said Kiki had threatened to hurt her unless she...John even claimed he had several eyewitnesses to this incident, which never happened; she would never have done that to anyone, not even to Horace, who’d certainly done worse than that to her.

What the hell was she going to do now?!

No way she—or any of them—were going to get another job, not anywhere in Terranovan soil, not with the media finding more and more lies to tell about her, especially in connection with Rosalind, who Kiki guessed had really been fired, cause of her little brother kicking up sand in the Homesteads...

What the hell was she going to do?!

The lies were getting more scandalous by the minute, and, some bitter truths were being revised to fit; some of the men who had gotten her strung out on redbud a long, long time ago, the men who used her dependence on that to make her...do things...were on the Net now, acting like she wanted to debase and degrade herself for money, telling everyone on the whole goddamn planet, on every human world, she was still a chickenheaded whore.

No one was going to believe she had shaken that demon loose from her soul, that she was still fighting that demon, every single day of her life.

And, she didn’t even know Felicia, not all that well, but they were saying she was going with her, that they went down to the Cafe to see those poor girls forced to debase and degrade themselves, just as Kiki had been made to do.

When all was said and done, though, she could care less about what they said about her.

But, they’d gone after her girls, telling lie after fucking lie about the things they supposedly did to each other, to any other girl they could corner; poor NaTanya had come home bawling, sobbing out all the fucking things she had been accused of doing, just before she’d echoed the expulsion notice to her mama’s plant.

NaTanya would never have hurt anyone, neither of them would have, they’d been through that, watched their mama go through that with Horace, his little brother Tony, and all the others she’d been pimped out to, before she’d finally found courage, in the form of Natasha Gipson, to stand up for herself, and leave their sorry black asses behind.

She couldn’t let Lexie down anymore: she already had had to be the mother her own mama couldn’t be for her, never even knew what childhood was.

She deserved to go to college, a real college, get an education, make something of herself, not get slapped down like her mama had, yet, it seemed Guy Zellner himself was bound and determined to let neither of her children leave Terranova alive.

What the fuck was she going to do about that?!

“There you are, baby,” Tasha whispered, sitting down next to her in the booth on the stretch end; she was wearing a nightshirt, sneakers and a thin jacket, long dark hair askew, chubby, round face lined with worry, fear, concern.

On the verge of tears, she gently hugged Kiki.

“I was worried sick,” she whispered. “I woke up about thirty minutes ago, you weren’t in bed, you weren’t in the house; I looked all over Wesley for you, worried about what you were going to do.”

Kiki hugged her back, stroking her lover’s hair.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, “Baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, honest. I couldn’t sleep, I was too worried about what’s gonna happen.”

“It’ll be all right, baby,” Tasha whispered.

“No, it won’t,” Kiki said, breaking down, sobbing,“ it isn’t, those bastards are going to have their way, we’re going to lose everything, my children are going to lose everything, they’ll even go so far as to take your babies from you, right in front of you, when they’re born, and, I-i can’t do a fucking thing to stop it.”

“We’re going to get through this,” Tasha replied, crying herself, rocking Kiki in her arms.

“We’re going to get through this,” Tasha repeated softly,“ together, like we always have, you, me and the kids; we’ll find a way to make it, you’ve got to believe that, we’ll find a way to make it, all right?!”

Kiki nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered, wanting to believe what she knew wasn’t true, holding on to the woman who had been her life these last ten years.

“Okay,” she repeated, nodding her head again.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 03:01:22 ZULU

“I know where she’s being held,” her former sarnt major told Cressida Hodges, Director-General of Commonwealth Combined Intelligence, as she sat at her desk in her otherwise-darkened office deep within Commonwealth Armed Forces HQ.

“She’s still on Terranova, in the Flynt County Law Enforcement Center,” Carson Selkirk added, as he stood six inches in front of Cressida’s right eye,” the Yankers plan on transporting her offworld sometime this afternoon, exactly where, no one knows.”

“God damn it, Dee,” the Director-General of CCI replied with an explosive exhalation. “Do you realize what you’re asking—“

“I’m not asking,” Carson replied, his tone indicating extreme emotional distress, same as what had sent him to the loony bin at the end of bloody IW 1,”I’m begging. I’m going in, regardless of your answer, Six, even knowing I can’t...”

He trailed off.

“Sod,” Cressida whispered, wishing she’d the good sense to retire after the Treaty of Habitat, the Commonwealth spymaster saying “sod” again, studying the War Room repeater display floating over her workstation.

The Yanker Starfleet’s entire Coreward Command were on full war alert, scrambled in low Terranova orbit, waiting for the go signal to attack, their losses from a week ago already replaced, the Command itself reinforced, and more than enough to keep the JMC machines there occupied.

While a dozen shock armies, with supporting air and naval assets, were gathering on the west coast of Basseterre to have another go at the four Maggie rigs in the Sea of Martinez and the continent of New Patagonia beyond.

Compared to that, what were four, five, even six lives?!

She knew the answer, before she’d even asked herself that question.

“Everything,” she said aloud.

“Sod,” she said a third time.

“I’ll see what can be done, Sarnt Major,” she whispered. “Now, piss off, get away.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:06:18 ZULU

Star Admiral Shoshanna Tarpley held Commander Carla Wheeler’s hand in hers as they looked down at the burned, broken body of their youngest daughter.

Senior Captain Jameison Sue Lanier not knowing what the fuck to say.

Even “I’m sorry,” wasn’t good enough, just as she hadn’t been good enough to keep Master Technician Riana Tarpley from being killed during that dogfight over the Redeemption Mountains of Twice-Born.

Her and two others from Unbroken’s engineering team, plus eighteen of her Starmarines killed in the fighting downside, and the over two hundred fifty others from the rest of the squadron she should never have been given command of in the first place.

Jami looked down at that burned-up face; she had just turned seventeen, always happy and smiling, at least she was when Jami had seen her last Friday evening, just before she’d gated downside; she didn’t even know if Riana had anyone special, that was the kind of Skipper she fucking was.

“We tried talking her out of it,” Commander Wheeler, second in command of SADM Tarpley’s flagship, the starfighter carrier Dokdo, whispered,”but, this was what she wanted, and we couldn’t say no, even knowing it would...”

Her voice trailed off in sniffles and sobs, Star Admiral Tarpley turning to Unbroken’s OC, gently laying a hand on her right shoulder, saying, her voice choked:

“Just before we left Venus last Friday night, she had dinner with us, couldn’t stop talking about you, how lucky she was to have been assigned to Unbroken’s engineering team straight out of T-school...she knew this ship’s history...and, your record...inside and out—”

“I should’ve done better by her,” was all Jami could think to say.

“We had a talk,” SADM Tarpley said,”just before she left, when we knew we were going to Terranova to defend those rigs and the Homesteaders; hell, she was certain even before the vote had come, more than a bit apprehensive, cause she knew she might not come back, but she wanted to do what was right and not be afraid. She chose this life, Jami, you are not to blame, I know you think you are, that comes from being a good skipper, who knows she’s responsible for the lives of her command, and, if need be, how they die.”

“I think,” she added,” she would’ve thought you did your best in that respect, so who am I to—”

“Commander?” she said, spotting Commander Michelle Phillips out of the corner of her eye, Jami’s wife and Unbroken’s second in command standing at the entrance to the med section’s morgue. piece of flexiplas in her hands.

“Apologies, sirs,” Micki whispered, Jami turning to face her. “I—”

“You wouldn’t have come if—” Jami started to say, before looking into Micki’s eyes.

Then at the orders Micki had echoed to her plant.

Nodding her head, the officer commanding, Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Unbroken said out loud:

“I want the command team to meet us on the comcon in an hour.”

Micki nodding her head in reply.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:09:16 ZULU

He shot bolt upright in his bed, this close to cracking his skull open on the underside of the chest of drawers, his body drenched in sweat, shaking, his plant insistenly bleeping for his attention.

“Yes?” Colonel John Keller blearily asked, the image of FAC Antares’ second in command, Major Annmarie Carstairs, appeared, saying:

“Someone just gated aboard Antares that I think you need to see.”

“I think very much,” she added,”you need to see him, preferably before your brother finds out he’s on TB.”

“No,” John said, blood running cold, hands balling themselves up into fists of their own voiltion, knowing there could only be one person in the worlds which fit even that bare description.

“He’s being escorted downside, two combat teams of Aerospace Infantry,” Annmarie replied.” I wouldn’t have bothered, but he claims to have information—”

“Last time that bastard had that claim to make, “ John said, getting up from the rack, one of his hands uncurling long enough to hover over the butt of his power-holstered M2140,”my brother was left paying the price, after he helped murder Jessi.”

“—concerning Kiki Winslow, her lover and her children,” Annmarie finished, while John made his way from his quarters, along the spinhab’s main corridor, to the ship’s command and control center, two of Antares’ combat teams escorting a tall, lean, bald man in a rumpled grey armorjack duster and tan herringbone slacks, both Armani, as were the shoes, made of genuine Yanker river chomper hide.

Antares’ SCdid not hesitate for a second in giving that miserable Californio Dope King son of a bitch exactly the kind of welcome aboard he had coming, Jamie Murdoch, trailing blood and implanted teeth, stupidly coming up off the deck, so John could bash him right in his cocksucker a second time.

Before stomping him down onto the deck, his Midnight Sun Arms M2140 massdriver pistol ejecting itself into the FedAerospaceForce officer’s right hand and pointed squarely between his beady little shit-colored eyes, one of See BS’ most accomplished liars insisting,”you have to listen to—”

“—you pleading for your miserable dogshit of a life,” John said coldly,”just before I send you straight to Hell to burn for your sins?”

“I’d have expected this from him,” Murdoch had the nerve to say. “Everything we have on you, however, suggested you’d have been more reas—”

“He’s my brother, you son of a bitch!” roared the commander of the Antares, stomping his sorry ass down into the deck again.

Harder this time.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:22:00 ZULU

“I know,” Jay Todman’s older brother hissed, Jamie Murdoch getting entirelly too good a look down the barrel of his weapon,”that doesn’t mean a fucking thing where you come from, Murdoch, so I don’t really expect you to understand what it means to me.”

“Nor,” he added,”do I care in the slightest if you do get it.”

“All I care about,” he said, Murdoch that much closer to being smeared all over the deck, after risking his skinny ass to come all the way here,”is watching you get yours for what you did to Jessi.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that!” Murdoch insisted.

“You only lured her there to be gang-raped,” Keller spat back at him,”and tortured for nearly two goddamn days by your boys, before they fucking let her die, and dumped her body into the fucking Rio Verde, so they could stage their version of what happened!”

The MedCom flogger could only nod his head in answer to that.

That was what had happened, though not of his own design, he’d lured her there to be brutalized for forty-five and a half hours, before they finally let her die, putting what was left of her in the driver’s seat of a ‘27½ Jag XJM which had then been driven by remote off of the Rio Verde bridge on Cascadia 816, into the river for the Media Committee’s bought and paid for eyewitnesses to “find” two more days after that, by which time the Committee had had their story ready to go.

He’d been transferred from CBS’ New Vancouver office, “promoted” to buerau chief in New Athens, on lovely fucking Terranova, redeeming himself somewhat with his role during IW2.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself, you miserable bastard?!” Keller demanded.

“All I can say,” Murdoch replied, honest for a change,”since there’s no chance of you believing any explanation I have to give on that subject.”

“Damn straight,” Keller replied.

“So,” Murdoch said,”if you’re going to shoot me, do it now...the lives of a nine-million man shock army, six million Avalon soldiers and 235 million TBs who happened to have been in Guy Zellner’s way would mean nothing, if you close that circuit, but what’s that, when compared to exacting your brother’s impotent revenge?”

“What the hell does that mean?!” Keller, still not lowering his weapon, still not firing, asked.

“What the fuck do you think, Keller?!” Murdoch spat back at him.

“You swapped the footage of the massacre in Zellnersboro,” Keller, finally lowering his weapon, at last getting it,”for—”

“—whatever,” Jay Todman’s annoying gravel voice said from just behind Murdoch’s head,”the Yanker propaganda service was supposed to have cooked up to represent military ops in the Homesteads.”

“Yeah,” Murdoch said, as Keller took his right boot off of the Californio’s chest, allowing him to, very painfully, stand up and look the former President of the Middie Senate in the eye.

“I am a Media Committee pay grade ten associate,” he explained,”which, Mister President, as you well know, puts me only three steps below the Committee members themselves—”

“It also,” Todman said, spitting the words out,”gives you the security clearance to get into the TMS studios and swap out the footage without one of Syd Deal’s thugs looking over your shoulder.”

“I did it, after the DirtComs repatriated me,” Murdoch further explained to a man who would sooner see him dead,”and the Committee sent me back to the Ranch for debriefing and loyalty testing.”

He then removed a pin of an ancient penny-farthing bicycle from the inside pocket of his armorjack, holding it out for the Mid reporter to see.

“Recognize that?” he asked.

“That means nothing to me,” Todman replied. “You could have just as easily taken that from one of the Jammers, after you set him up the way you did Jessi.”

“Jammers?” Keller asked.

“For the last ten years, ” Todman replied,”Armed Forces Intelligence have been hearing rumors of a group of rogue MedCom floggers and content creators working to derail the Committee and its agenda, though, ‘til recently, that was all it was, just rumors, until AFI operatives inside Skywalker Ranch confirmed it two days after the shooting at the Ernest R. Anderson Basic Training Center.”

“This fucker,” Keller said,”raised from birth as the spoiled child of MedCom privilege, pampered in all the luxury being one of their best liars afforded him, would willingly risk all that, just to—”

“That,” Todman, eyes narrowing as they stared through Murdoch, said,”was the objection I raised when Jessi told me about this bastard 49 years ago. “

“You’re probably just as right as I was,” he added,”to object.”

“Anything to say to that?!” he then demanded of Murdoch.

“I truly wish,” Murdoch, staring back into Todman’s eyes, said quietly,”I could have saved her, but there was nothing I could do, Damien had already been alerted to her activities way before she’d come to me, and, they were all on top of us, before either of us could escape.”

“There hasn’t been a day in the last 49 years,” he added,”that I hadn’t wished I could’ve done something for her; you were lucky she was in your life, I wanted, more than anything in the worlds, to save her, but Damien had me on my way back to the fucking Ranch, when they did what they did to her, and, when I’d heard what happened, it was too late.”

He then said:

“That’s the truth. If you still don’t believe me, you Middie son of a bitch, then you’re just gonna have to take your pound of flesh, and be happy with that.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:30:08 ZULU

“...another cheap publicity stunt,” Gotchanow’s holoimage shouted at the assembled floggers in a news conference held earlier, ”that’s all that is, a cry for attention from some shameless degenerate of a feral, who has failed at everything she’s ever done, comedy, acting, talk-show hosting.

Now, she fakes her death to cover up the fact she’s failed at perversity with another one of her kind, that she couldn’t even keep one of her own kind from hating what she was, what she did with that bitch, what she allowed that bitch to do to h—”

“Off,” Rosalind Smith, seated on the sofa in her apartment, whispered to her HV.

She couldn’t sleep, not after what had happened.

The apartment was still turned upside down from where the Gnats had rifled through it in the holy name of the law, taking everything that had been hers which even remotely resembled Excelsior property.

They’d cleaned out her bank account, the thirty thousand she had somehow managed to save up seized by the Terranovan authorities and the company, who had claimed it was to pay back the gift certificates and bonuses she had been given for service, perfect attendance, and plain hard work, monies Excelsior now assured her she never deserved.

What hadn’t been seized to cover that had been seized for all the damages and losses to company property the company had all of a sudden said was her responsibility; they had even taken two hundred dollars for food which had gone missing from Henrietta Stanley’s retirement dinner eight years ago, cause HR was responsible for those things, John the Bottle had said so, so the HR manager had to pay for the food which had allegedly been taken from the plant after the dinner.

They weren’t finished.

Sherrie had just commed, said she was sorry, but Excelsior now claimed she owed several thousand dollars in unauthorized comm charges racked up while she had been linked up with the company’s

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

network; Excelsior’s lawyers were talking FIFA now, as all of Rosalind’s retirement investment account had been seized, and applied against what the company said she owed them.

Even Blue Cross Blue Shield Terranova, Excelsior’s group health provider, had gotten into the act, claiming she owed them three hundred and fifty million dollars TSC for the time she had busted up her leg playing in the company soccer tournament eighteen years ago; BSBCT had covered it then, but, now that she had been automatically disenrolled from the plan upon termination, the insurance company had reversed themselves, charging her for the full amount of the hospital’s bill for their services, their excuse being that the company had uncovered evidence that she had an addiction to neocane during her entire employment with Excelsior, which was grounds for disallowing her claim.

Subaru had already commed her, informing her she had five days to come up with the remainder of the note, or they were going to seize her car, the same with Beren’s Furniture; they could do this, legally, take immediate action against a debtor if it seemed she was going to default, something she hadn’t known until now.

The HV switched back on, projecting snow now, a tinny voice issuing from the speakers:

“All communications services terminated due to possibility of non-payment. Services will be restored upon payment of balance due. All communications services terminated due to possibility of non-payment. Services will be restored upon payment of balance due.”

Her plant said the same thing when she tried accessing the Net; she had just posted her resumé online, so now, it would be purged, along with everything else she had posted.

How the hell did they expect her to hunt for a job when she couldn’t get on line? That only left her with mailing her resumé out physically, or trying to use the Jones County Public Library’s network to repost her resumé and search for a job on the Net.

That was the only good thing about registering to vote on Terranova; in the first years of the Enosis, the Common Legislature and Robert Martinez, the Union’s first governor, had added incentives by the barrelful in order to get people to register to vote and serve on juries, including unlimited access to the Union’s public libraries for life just by showing your voter registration to the librarians.

She finished her coffee and got up from the couch.

The Gnats had been thorough, she had to give them that; they’d even carted off an old executive chair that the company had been planning to throw away anyway.

She had bought that from the company for twenty-five dollars ten years ago; she had even shown those Gnats the bill of sale, only to have Aldrige assure her that Jack Flanders, the plant’s administrative and payroll manager, did not have a copy of any bills of sale for anything she might have bought from the company, so his men had to haul away the chair, as well as eight t-shirts, six polo shirts and two sweaters with Excelsior logo in her wardrobe.

She was in her bedroom now; this doubled as her home office, and the Gnats had left it a frightful mess, clothes thrown all over the floor, drawers turned over on the floor, the workstation ransacked.

Accessing the apartment’s AI network, she saw the Gnats had simply forced any file in memory \mentioning either the company or anyone working for the company into a permanent delete state, crippling her system in the process; Microsoft Word 4U refused to run, the Win4U’s interface manager’s voice informing her that it couldn’t find part of the executable.

She swore, accessing the System Monitor, watching the solid-state drive dissolve before her eyes, instantly replaced with a blue holofield:

“Unable to access http.JonescoCourt321.c. Boot drive has destablized, all attempts to repair boot drive have failed, all data not backed up to other media will be lost. The system has shut down.”

And, the terminal went dark and dead, a fire alarm bell going off, as acrid smoke from the dying AI net assaulted her nose, the apartment’s fire-extinguisher system kicking in, showering her with CO2.

Rosalind realized what had gone on; instead of using Win4U’s cancellbots to delete the necessary files and System Agent to uninstall the JOMAR emulator and comm drivers, the Gnats had uploaded a berserker program to not only delete Excelsior property from the network, but to wreck it as well....

She was aware of an insistent rapping at the door.

She got up, walked out into the living room; out of the corner of her eye, she saw the appliances in the kitchen and living room all belching smoke.

The system’s last gasp must have shorted them out.

She opened the door, facing her landlord, Mister MacCaulay.

“You must’ve been on one hell of a trip, ” he said, his eyes goggling as he saw the apartment.“ And just look what the hell you did to this apartment! You’ve trashed it, and the appliances are all shot! ”

“I can expl—” Rosalind started to say.

“I know what happened,” the landlord replied. “Just like the all the rest of ‘em, you couldn’t cope with getting kicked out of your cushy fucking job, so you decided to get good and fucking smashed, probably on redbud, from the looks of you.”

“I don’t think,” he said, echoing an eviction notice to her plant,“ I need to explain this to you. Under the terms of the Rent and Lending Security Act, you’re being evicted for aniticipated inability to pay your rent. You have until seventeen today to pack up your shit and your animal and get out, before I call in the Gnats.”

“You will, of course,” he added,“ be billed for the damages to the apartment.”

“Because either those six lives matter, or no one’s does,” Cres calmly replied, ticking off her reasons by counting on her fingers. “Because what’s being done to them is wrong. Because we’ve the power and the moral obligation to make it right. Because, we’re going to be fighting those bastards anyway. Finally—“

“—because an officer is responsible for those under her,” Tina whispered. “Even the ones who go batshit, and walk away.”

“I am responsible for him,” Cres conceded,”and for what happened to him. That is a fact.”

Tina nodded.

“So, you are,” she whispered, as her plant bleeped for her attention.

“One moment, luv,” she said, saying “Munro?”

“Skipper,” SCS Warspite’s 2ic, Commander Greta Kraus’ holo reported,”reinforcements have just entered the system, at zero by twelve, three hundred kiloklicks downrange, and closing us at two-one-zero kilokips ahv.”

The battle ready klaxon started howling, as Warspite began venting atmo, and buttoning up.

“Skipper, Yankers have just upcycled, and punched all their Preds and King Cobras,” Greta reported, as Tina rose from her rack, and screwed on her lid, ”and are closing us rapidly at two-one-zero kilokips ahv; hostile ground and orbital defenses have just heated up, MHDs have just snapped on round all their major military and coroporate installations on planet and in orbit.”

“Fuck,” Tina interjected, running from her quarters, down the spinhab main corridor, up through the airlock, onto the red-lit comcon, securing herself in her command conn, as Warspite’ s defensive countermeasures engineer, Executive Officer Timothy Hatcher, reported,”Zellner’s making a live broadcast from the bridge of one of those warbirds closing us.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:43:19 ZULU

“People of the Union,” Guy Thomas Zellner, king of the trogs, and his only begotten son, raved, as he stood, in the white and gold full-dress uniform(complete with gold filigree thorned crown) of the Supreme Commander of the Terranovan Armed Forces, on the bridge of a Yanker Columbia-class heavy, “ you have seen for yourselves all the signs and portents of the Last Days, of the Tribulation and the millenium of Judgement Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh said would come to pass. It is time for we, His People, His Sovereigns, His First-Born Sons, to take up the duty of loving discipline against the harlots and against the whore of Babylon, who has made them drunk on the wine of her fornication.

The seals have been broken, the Last Days have come for allof us...all of us.

You have seen women fornicating with women in direct defiance of His Received Canon! You have seen the violence they have brought about, after we, His People, refuse to bow down, and worship Lilith Babylon’s stinking pit of inquity!”

“Testify, brother,” Theodore Krantz, State President of the Mountaindove Republic, remarked sarcastically, Roger Selwyn Tarrant, Chairman of the Executive Council of the Federation of Sovereign Star Nations, telling him to “shut your gob!”

“His terrible vengance,” Zellner continued prating, building up to a fire and brimstone cadence that briefly—only briefly—reminded the Oswald High Commissioner of Benjamin,” Our terrible vengance is at hand! They have mocked Us, scorned Us, tried to feminize and destroy Us! NO MORE!

Our swift sword will fall upon them, cleaving from Our Kingdom all the bulldykers, all the harlots, all the procreated men who have allowed bulldykers and harlots to turn them into bulldykers and harlots, preying upon men and women alike!

We shall rise, and walk the worlds of His Intelligent Design, casting those who offend Us, and those who have done the basest evil upon Us into pits of everlasting white-hot flame where they shall burn, burn, burn, BURN for a thousand years, before We, His Kings upon this realm, permit them to die, and we ascend to Deo sapiens, as promised by His Received Canon!

How they shall scream, when We, His Biological Authoritarians, stalking them as the lion stalks its prey, sentences those filthy goddamn degenerate animals and anyone, anyone, who has so much as given them a few moments’ shelter in word, thought or deed to eternal hell-FIRE!”

Spittle flew from the lips of Tarrant’s only begotten son, the king of all the troglodytes slavering ever onward, each word he spoke less coherent than the last:

“They will wail and their teeth will gnash, as they howl in one thousand years of torment, every day crying, suffering, begging the anointed Lords and Masters oftheir lives for mercy they do not deserve, regretting for all time their defiance of Our Received Canon, as their polluted flesh burns and burns, and the fire will never be put out, until We permit them to die! Our time to walk the land, and exact Our justice has come at last, at last, and We, His People, are angry at what Our little ones have done to Us and all His Creation!

Female perversion in every bed, female perversion in every heart, female perversion on every tongue, femperverted dogma in every court of law, murder and fear in every tradoc, CRIME IN EVERY STREET, WAR IN EVERY HOME...death...death in every corner of ourworlds, the worlds We created, worlds Our Father, Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh, Caesar and Christ, gave to Us, to Us, my fellow Sons of God.

We are angry with the lower animals We created, by mistake, because of this.”

“Jesus God,” Rashad Malcom Muhammed, President of the Secret, Supreme, Exalted High Committee of the Thirteen of the New Confederate Order, commented,”what a ham.”

“Belt up!” Tarrant barked out, as his son changed his tone to a wheedling , pleading, saccharine whine:

“We are angry, and Wewillstand together, against the perverted, filthy bitches and their foul conspiriacy, organized and led by that Antichrist whose name is woman, whose name is Lilith Angelique Gault, the degenerate harlot and femperv animal who leads the Godless Communist State of Venus, hellbent upon damning us all to the death they, and only they, deserve for their crimes against Us, and against H—”

“He’s forced our hand,” Albert Drake, Prime Minister of the Dominion of Nova Virginia, also talking sense, remarked. “We either join forces with him, or we show weakness and division in the face of the enemy.”

“Ja,” was the bitter reply of Leopold Eichmann, Fürher of the Deutschesnationalsocialismusbund, sucking down his vodka martini with the same sick, sour expression on his face many of the others wore on theirs.

“Bastard,” growled Rashad, downing his tumbler of Kentucky in one gulp, pouring himself another.

“Yeah,” Theodore, mixing himself another sangria, snapped,”no shit.”

“No use crying over it, gentlemen,” Guillermo Calderon, President of the Argentine Republic, said. “We play the hand he’s dealt us.”

“Then,” Maximillen Lange, President Prémieré of the Gallic Republic, said, a glass of Floodplain grain whisky and redbud in his hand,”we deal with him...c’est facile.”

“Let us all hope so,” Lars Johanssen, Chancellor of the Kingdom of New Jylland, replied, toasting the others with the glass of dark rum in his left hand.

“Let us all,” he repeated,”sincerely hope so.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 04:57:22 ZULU

“—what the harlot Babylon,” Gotchanow slavered, stabbing the air with his right pointing finger every so often,”could not achieve by subversion, she nows hopes to achieve by force; the army of darkness We thought We had defeated seven short days ago has returned in even greater numbers, her warships and her soldiers gathered just over one kiloklick above Atlanta Three and New Athens, their weapons ready to rain terrible destruction down upon our heads, simply because we, His People, have told the jackboots ‘no!’ once too often for their liking, because we, the people of a Union who has always been first to promote justice, the rule of law, the law of morality, Christdentity and common decency which underpins our civilization, have the moral courage to call perversion perversion, filth filth, fornication fornication and We have determined Ourselves to fi—”

He drove down Terranova 49, past where the medcenter used to be, before Navicent built the new on on the 247 Connector, past the flooded, still-smoking six hundred meter-odd crater which had once been an Excelsior production facility, over the magrail at Five Points, and left onto Terranova 341.

Back streets from there, once he’d recrossed the magrail, and turned left at the fire house, Carson glancing at the HUD, as he drove the battered, green ‛27 TMC Sundevil coupe down Troutman Avenue, neither speeding nor creeping along, as either would’ve aroused more suspicion than he’d already brought on himself for walking off the job.

Damn shame that he had to ditch the Mountaineer for his first car, but this wasn’t as easily recognized as the pickup, though any Gnat who queried the Sundevil’s transponder would know instantly it was registered to him.

Chance I have to take, he concluded again, turning right onto Calhoun, which is why I’m trying not to drive suspiciously, so no trolling Gnat gets it in his head to query my vehicle’s transponder.

So, he observed wryly, eyes open for other suspicious persons shuffling and staggering around in the dark, it makes perfect, logical sense that I’m on a dead-end street with nothing but trap houses. Will totally avoid suspicion this way.

No choice there either. Calhoun dead ended, but the empty field of tallgrass beyond it led right up to the LEC, and while this old hoopti stood out in the midst of all these modern and pimped-out rides, there would be a perfect place coming up where it could hide.

Right with the other rusted-out wrecks, he thought, pulling into the abandoned house on the left-hand side of the dead end, and parking the Sundevil in between a variety of abandoned cars in its smallish front yard.

Shutting everything down, he checked and re-checked his HMD13, stuffed extra mags into the pockets of his black armorjack duster, ejected and checked his PDMD, then, cautiously crept out of the driver’s side, crouched down to take full advantage of the other vehicles, and made his way through a gap in a rusted-out fence into the tallgrass, navigating by Judas-light toward the LEC.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:00:00 ZULU

She just wanted to be held, so Natsaha Gipson had held her, until she’d finally fallen asleep.

She sat on the bed, right leg folded underneath her, stroking Kiki’s hair as she slept, fitfully, stalked by nightmares Tasha only knew too well.

Her own fucking brothers had pimped her out to every boy in Barnesville, when they and their father weren’t fucking her themselves, at the same time they watched all those pornos, made her watch those filthy, goddamn...

Closing her eyes, lifting her head towards the ceiling, Tasha drew in one long breath to try and push the tears back; right now, Kiki and the kids needed her to be strong, even though she was just as weak and frightened as she ever was, it was just that it didn’t seem that way, not with Kishana there to lend her some of her strength, and she was a strong person, even if she didn’t see that in herself sometimes.

They were all out of jobs now; Kiki had been fired from Excelsior yesterday, Lexie and NaTanya both let go when they’d gotten to work at the Chik n’ Head, Lex Parrish’s worthless, child-molesting, bonesmoking, buttfucking, geek monster self not even having the decency to comm them, like he would’ve if he’d wanted them to come in for the dope whores he fucking kept on hiring in spite of themselves.

Hell, no, miserable South Coast son of a bitch had to wait until they were all the way across town to do that to them, in front of customers and co-workers.

And, to tell them all why, same as when they’d both been kicked out of tradoc yeasterday.

To top it all off, Culver Kidd was ready to rule today, after originially putting it off until next week because of what had almost happened in Ezra, but hadn’t, because of what Carson Selkirk’s niece had done a couple days ago.

Kiki was right, she always had been, Tasha just hadn’t wanted to face that; they were going to give her children...her children...back to motherfucking Horace to abuse and destroy, while the children inside Tasha now...either a court-mandated abortion or a court-ordered birth and Tasha forced to watch their children together taken from them into the clutches of the MiniHumRes, never to be seen again.

A soft rap at the bedroom door, before it opened, Tasha turning to find Lexie, already dressed, her long, wavy hair all a mess, eyes puffy, standing at the doorway.

“I’ve got breakfast,” she whispered,”if you...”

She trailed off, sighing, trying not to cry, Tasha extending her left arm out, Lexie half running over to her, letting herself be held, as she cried anyway.

Tasha closing her eyes again, stroking the hair of mother and daughter alike.

The warbirds under the command of the other Federation heads of state had joined Zellner and his mob on station, while, on the ground, 21st through 28th Army Corps, the Middies’ 4th through 11th Armies, the Jolians’ 22d and 25th Armies and the Cosmos’ 3d and 19th Army Groups had joined the Commonwealth’s First through Third Army Corps, and the Middie 16th and 20th Armies at the rigs in the Sea of Martinez, while the Yankers deployed the First, Second, Fourth and Seventh Shock Armies in addition to the Third, Eighth, Eleventh and Fifteenth Shock Armies.

On Bess’ comcon, and six inches from the Commonwealth CDS’ right eye, her Angelique’s weary, strained, tear-stained holo said:

“ Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you. As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement, but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other, so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there beoaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard. ”

And, all her wife could do in answer to that was nod her head, as she continued fighting her ship, fighting this sodding war.

Destroying an enemy living in fear of two mothers, two daughters, and those who could make homes in the hearts of comets.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:23:04 ZULU

“Wake up, mama, there’s a white boat coming down the river,” she sang, strumming the red ironwood acoustic guitar she’d bought in Old Town another lifetime ago, “with a big red beacon and a flag and a man on the rail. I think you’d better call John ‘cause it don’t look like they’re here to deliver the mail. And, it’s less than a mile away, I hope they didn’t come to stay. It’s got numbers on the side and a gun and it’s making big waves...”

Commander Michelle Phillips nodded her head, as she stood quietly in the doorway to her wife’s quarters, watching her commander, her best friend, before they ever even made love, pour out her heart to the guitar.

More than anything in the worlds, especially during the worst days—like the last few had been—she’d wanted the cup taken from her hands, knowing it wasn’t to be, knowing she had to keep holding on to it, always too much at stake for her to do otherwise.

Like now.

The orders —text only—floated in front of her right eye, Jami not even looking at them, as she kept singing,”so the powers that be left me here to do all the thinking. And, I just turned twenty-two, I was wondering what to do. The closer they came, the more those feelings grew.”

It was an old song, predating even the American Golden Age, that little Micki could tell from the lyrics.

Her wife had a beautiful voice, played that guitar like she’d been born with it, even though she sold herself short in that respect as well.

She always felt inadequate to the task before her, more so now, with 21 of her crew dead, in addition to over two hundred others from amongst the rest of the squadron, Jami, like she always did, blaming herself ‘cos she thought she wasn’t good enough.

“Hey, baby,” she whispered, her hands resting on the strings and frets, as she looked up into Micki’s eyes.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Micki replied.

Nodding her head, Jami got up, screwed on her lid, and laid the guitar in its place beside the workstation.

Nodding her head one more time, before saying:

“Let’s go, then.”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

17) Shelter Me From the Powder And the Finger
“Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you. As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement, but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other, so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard..“
—Homer, The Iliad, Book 2

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:30:00 ZULU

“Captain on deck!” Commander Michelle Phillips barked out, the commanders of 515 FrigRon’s eleven other frigates, and Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Unbroken’s own command team all coming to attention, as Senior Captain Jameison Sue Lanier took her place at the center of the comcon.

“As you were, all of you,” Jami said, trying desperately to be the commander of this squadron, everyone resuming their places, as she displayed the squadron’s orders before her, swallowed once, said:

“This squadron has been ordered to Terranova, ASAP, to extract Kishana Winslow, Tasha Gipson, and their children, any means necessary. I’m sure all of you have been keeping up with the intel coming from Terranova, “ all of them nodded their heads,”so I won’t go into detail as to why the allied forces currently on station over Terranova are unable to accomplish this themselves.”

“I also won’t lie to you,” she added. “The mission—”

“With respect, Senior Captain,” Starcraft Captain Willie Jordan of Turbulent said quietly,”I think all of us here know what we’re going to be up against, so, let’s do the mission.”

She was naked, bruised, shivering in a ball on the ferrocrete, the fat pig of a Terranova National Policeman outside the Flynt County Law Enforcement Center’s fuck tank turning away from the one-way mirrored glass to face the LEC’s crew, his triple-jowled face split open to display half-rotted teeth.

“Y’all got your work cut out for you,” the filthy goddamn bastard said to the ten dops. “She been hardco’ fo’ years, slurping up some white girl in some trailer park in Ezra, actin’ like they married or somethin’ when they’re out in public together.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to it, O,” Shannon, the head of the crew said, unzipping the front of its denim coveralls just enough to show cleavage. “By the time me and my girls get through with her, she’ll be hating bitches the way we hate ‘em. Ain’t that right, y’all?”

The others chuckled their assent to Shannon’s boasting, the head dop adding,”let’s pop that do’ open, so we can go in there and pop that koochie.

Shannon waited until Poolstick Bryant’s younger, even fatter brother had keyed his code into the tank door via plant, and the door itself slid open, before drawing its California-Winchester M2149 massdriver pistol from inside the coveralls, closing the triggering circuit before Otis’ bovine black ass could register surprise, the mag ejecting itself spent, hot and glowing white onto the floor, after Shannon had driven 20mm BPG into the rest of its bewildered crew.

Only Otis was still alive, his personal MHD shielding stopping most of the gras Shannon had vectored at him, the ones getting through blowing big, bloody, blubbery holes in that fat gut, his right kneecap and his left shoulder, the bastard, calling it a goddamn black bitch, struggling to get up, and draw down on it, as alarm klaxons began hooting up and down the cellblock, and someone started shouting,”containment breach in progress, I repeat, containment breach in progress, all guards, all male residents, initiate zero-survival protocols, immediately!”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:35:00 ZULU

“Zero-survival this, bonesmokers,” Carson Selkirk, in the guise of a Yanker Gnat, said, accessing the controls in the LEC’s blockhouse via plant, using Whore Ass’ security passphrase and PIC to reprogram the internal defenses, disable the pluto gas dischargers, drop the blast doors down, and snap MHD shielding on all over the block at the same time turreted 50mm tribarrels began turning on and hosing down the men they were supposed to have been aiding.

“All external comms are down , Carson,” Major Fred Barker, third in command of the Terranova National Police’s Flynt County Command and the only other person still left wiggling in the blockhouse, said. “Building’s locked down, and the MHD shielding’s up full, AI net’s following standard anti-containment protocols to the letter.”

“Outstanding,” Carson replied, locking down the cells and pumping them full of S-15 gas at three atmospheres’ pressure.

“Still won’t stop them from scrambling every tac unit and TSID op in the Fall Line,” one of his former schoolyard bullies just had to add.

“Whore Ass is probably already outside right now,” Carson, watching the dop he’d ridden step over Otis Bryant’s exploded corpse and into the tank, cradling the trembling Alicia in her arms, telling her things were all right, when they were so far from all right, it wasn’t even funny.

“Two and a half of us ,” he said out loud,”against God knows how many Gnats, TSID ops and Special Forces Command thugs.”

“Not to mention the Ministry of FemRehab’s Red Dog Squad,” Fred said helpfully.

“Oh, yeah, mention them, why don’t you?” Carson, switching on the external scanners and cameras, remarked grimly, watching Gnats, TSID and Special Forces Command all mobilzing just outside the limit of the LEC’s MHD shielding, the aforementioned Red Dogs already disembarking from a MiniFemRehab CV-137D Prometheus airlifter, Horace Rumph, Major Rat Bastard in the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate screaming at one of his men, demanding to know:

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:37:16 ZULU

“Just how in the hell did they manage to elude surveillance in the first place, Lieutenant?!”

“I don’t know, sir,” the punkass shavetail white boy had the nerve to tell him. “I had him up the whole time, laser, neutrino, linkup to Flyntsboro, the whole nine, everything said he never left the house.”

“Everything would seem to be wrong, now, wouldn’t it?!” Doctor Horace Duane Rumph, Major in the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate, and head of its Special Victims Unit, replied, snorting his contempt for the dumb bonesmoker, as he turned back round, looking at the imposing red-brick fortress of an LEC, walled off from him and the others by its own MHD shielding, ACV-137U Spectre IV gunships hovering all around it, their 152s and tribarrelled 50s awaiting orders to start pounding it, Undersheriff Frankie Peacock, second in command of the Flynt County Command, looking back at Rumph, before saying into his plant:

“War Pigs and gunships, concentrate your fire on the shielding covering the front entry; rest of you, get ready to storm the building the instant you see a black spot starting to form.”

the Special Forces Command colonel telling his heavy-weapons gunners to “bring your MPARs to bear on the front entry as well; we go in, when the Gnats do.”

“Can you get through to the inside?” Rumph asked Peacock, the Flynt County Undersheriff replying,”negative, Major, the LEC’s AI net is following anti-containment protocols right down the line, cutting off all communications into the building’s part of those protocols.”

“How many are inside?” Rumph asked, the gunships, War Pig tactical transports and Special Forces Command heavy-weaps gunners all concentrating their fire on the front part of the facility’s shielding.

“Other than your half-brother, that bastard Fred Barker,” Peacock, with much contempt in his voice, replied,”and the dop they control, thirty jailers, 122 male residents, a ten-dop crew and fourteen communications and administrative personnel; everyone else is here, external defenses—”

The turreted tribarrel 50s all along the walls tracked and fired on all of them, everyone scattering for cover, Horace diving behind a Gnat cruiser with Peacock, who told him,”Sheriff Johnson’s in Curtis LeMay, at Bull & Dee’s, he should be on his way back here now.”

Seventy-two small inverted-wing starcraft appeared in the sky, all of them breaking formation and diving on the LEC, firing on it full-tilt with their 50s and King Cobra AKVs.

“Good thinking, Major,” Peacock replied, one of the Spectre IVs belching smoke and fire from its port turbine, one of the LEC’s weapons sending bomb-pumped gras slicing right through it. “Their firepower should reduce the shielding more quickly.”

“Not just the shielding, Undersheriff,” Horace replied, a BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!! shaking the planet, 31.96kT BPG slamming into the LEC itself, as the TSID major sprung up from cover, his California-Winchester M32A4 heavy massdriver firing full tilt as he charged towards the battered, unshielded, burning building along with every motherfucker on the ground with him.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:39:59 ZULU

Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Queen Elizabeth plowed through the enemy at a sustained 210 kilokips, her twelve squadrons of Osprey starfighters jinking, burning, shooting, vectoring their Raptors in against more hostile warbirds, while the 72,615-ton Ark Royal-class starfighter carrier’s ten 203mm massdrivers and complement of Raptor AKVs hosed down space in a 180 degree arc immediately ahead

The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth sat at the center of the carrier’s comcon, studying the tactical holodisplays on either side of her station, at the same time she fought her flagship.

“Reinforce MHDs, return fire!” Angelique snapped back, Sunni’s older sister, Commander Andria Jean Tilghmann-Gault, upcycling old Bess briefly to lightspeed, skinning top of a Yanker Columbia-class machine, Senior Lieutenant Linne Barrett letting fly with eight 203mm BPG from the working primary massdrivers, all of them pummeling the enemy warbird, tearing through his skin in fiery gouts, sending him reeling deadstick through the void at the same time three Yanker Musocgee-class strike cruisers all locked on and opened fire, Jeanie jinking, burning, briefly upcycling.

Now, a Casshole President-class battleship filled up the master holoproj, struggling to bring his guns to bear, Linne taking out his port Rittermark jenny and all of his port RCS thrusters, Bess’ 203s punching more holes through his shovel-headed spaceframe, which shredded him completely, the Commonwealth flagship flying through what remained.

All guns blazing as she fell on another Yanker heavy.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:41:00 ZULU

“Goddamn that fuckin’ bitch!” Guy Thomas Zellner, Governor of the Union, screamed over his link, as he scraped himself up off the bridge deck of Republican Union Starcraft Oriskany.

The bridge shook, exploded, and fell down around his ears, the Governor of the Union shouting for somebody to get Thrubert Baker on the line, now, the Oriskany’s comms contractor telling him,”external comms are out, sir, we can’t send or rec—”

“Shit!” he screamed, as a Commie warbird pumped 203s right down the Oriskany’s throat, scraping his topside in passing, the heavy cruiser’s chief engineering officer rattling off the whole litany of disaster, as the Governor of the Union finally succeeded in linking up with the commsat and accessing Baker’s plant.

“Get your dead ass out of that, Thurbert,” he spat at the holoimage of the miserable fucking South Coast crackerhead bitch, caught in the middle of hanging his tool up in his little fifteen-year old bitch ,”and get down to Wesley, now!”

“I thought—” that dumb son of a bitch started to say.

“That ain’t thunder you’re hearin’ outside, you stupid bonesmoker!” his Governor spat at his idiot of an AG. “And, somebody forgot to send that Commie bulldyker a copy of our timetable! Now, quit fuckin’ being stupid, get out to Wesley, and fuckin’ have the Gnats get all them bitches, before she gets to ‘em first!”

“On my way, sir,” Baker replied, discomming that instant, the Oriskany rocking again from more hits, the heavy cruiser’s helmsman upcycling, vectoring his right up the tailpipe of an Avalon warbird, the Oriskany’s FO screaming for his fico to let fly, the Avalon bitch turning inside the heavy cruiser’s guns, both starcraft letting go at the same time, the Governor of the Union knocked off his feet, hurled past the command conn, between the fire-control and defensive countermeasures stations into the bulkhead beyond, the Supreme Commander of the Union managing an “oh, fuck!” just before his world flashed white and he lost consciousness.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:43:18 ZULU

The Martin Lee went up in a white-hot blaze, as Oswald Republican Starcraft Wilfrid Risdon shook from nose to tail, his bridge exploding, his commander, WEO, and commandos stationed here all flew through the air to be smeared against the walls.

That last interjection had been forced out of him, more alarms howling inside the head of Roger Selwyn Tarrant, High Commissioner of the True Britannic Republic of Oswald, Chairman of the Executive Council of the United Federation of Sovereign Star Nations, as his flagship’s bridge shook itself to pieces again, his FO upcycling the Risdon, closing to point-blank range of a Commie frigate wheeling about and blasting him with a ten 203-millimeter bomb-pumped graser warheads driven into the pride of the Republican Astronautic Guard.

The Chairman of the Executive Council called up the telemetery from the Yankers’ Security Council AI network on one of his station’s holodisplays.

The Yankers’ ground forces weren’t just being heavily engaged, but pushed back by the JMC armies on planet, the seven “shock” armies’ of trogs staging a running firefight, as they backpedaled across the Sea of Martinez, desperately attempting to regroup for a counterassault; the three shock armies being sent to reinforce them wouldn’t arrive in time to do any good, not with the orbital transportal relay stations still out of comission after last week’s action...and, if she was going to do what he thought she was planning, they would be needed to defend Basseterre itsel—

“Reinforce MHDs,” Tarrant ordered,”continue firing; order all our Gryphons and Starhunters to form a defensive wedge round the Risdon; send signal to all Federation armed forces commands, request immediate reinfor—”

“Sir,” the intel officer replied,” signals coming in from all Federation armed forces commands, all reporting they are being heavily engaged by JMC machines sent to blockade them and by their assets on Twice-Born and are unable to commit any reinforcements at this time.”

“Of course,” replied the Oswald High Comissioner.

“I should have known,” he added.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:45:11 ZULU

“You son of a bitch!” Whore Ass howled, as Carson rolled out behind them in the hallway leading into the cellblock to take out another ten of the men his bastard half-brother brought with him, banging away with both PDMD and HMD to spray another thirty or forty all over the narrow coldlamp-lit passage, before they could think to return his fire.

This was the only way in or out of the block from the rest of the building, no maintenance chaseways, no fire escapes, no stairwells, no back doors, and the building’s red-brick facade hid supercooled nitrogen sandwiched between alternating layers of TDU and lead, all of which served to make gating in or out of here impossible.

The other end of the corridor led back to the processing area, where new female arrivals were subjected to the degrading ritual of the strip search, then scanned, probed, examined, shaved head to toe, tattooed and hosed down with freezing cold water, before being shoved into the tank to await the crew’s tender mercies, after which, they would be assigned to the lockdown’s male residents, to be used by them as they saw fit, until the powers that be decided what to do with their victims.

Beyond the processing area was the excercise yard, a triangular enclosure topped with concertrina wire and automated 50mm tribarrel turrets on either side cutting that off from the employee parking lot common to LEC’s jail and station house, otherwise physically isolated from one another; that had been turned into an obstacle course of burning junk by the Predators circling overhead, the fighters breaching the wall in several places but not taking out its guns or the 50s deployed along the perimeter of the lockdown proper.

Those had made short work of most of the men storming the building, Carson lying in wait for the rest of them, ambushing them from the cover of the processing area’s strip search cells, examination rooms, offices, shower stalls, dressing rooms and closets; at one point, Carson had thrown the corpse of the dop he’d ridden—killed setting up a previous ambush—at them, spooking most of the sons of bitches so badly that they just halfass returned his fire, as he burned them down.

Carson ducked back behind the doorway when both mags ejected themselves from their weapons, only Whore Ass left standing now, the bastard shouting into the semidarkness:

Carson not dignifying that with an answer, just hunkering down inside one of the shower stalls, reloading both weapons, catching his failing breath, trying to suppress the coughing jag he knew was coming on.

“Your efforts are futile, however,” that black bastard added, after hearing nothing from his half brother. “I think we both know that; you would be less than honest with yourself, if you think otherwise.”

No footsteps approaching him, Carson making a quick, unnecessary check of the homebuilt distortion field and hushbubble generators hooked onto his belt to make sure they were both in perfect operating order, which they were.

“You are fighting a losing battle, you always have been, “ Horace shouted down the hall at him. “Even when we were both kids, you just had to stand up for them, for her, even though you knew the whole fuckin’ time she wasn’t studyin’ your dumb black procreator ass, that she didn’t give a damn ‘bout you, wuhn’t even thankin’ to give you some!”

“Bastard,” Carson whispered to himself, though he knew Horace would yank that dingleberry out his hairy black ass, one of his father’s two truest sons chuckling to himself , telling Carson:

“She bragged about wanting to slurp that other bitch up, and, you weren’t even man enough to make her pussy right. I had to be the one to do that for you, and what thanks did I ever get for tryin’ to help a brother out?!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he then said. “I have what I want, and you don’t; come out of hiding, Carson, watch helplessly, as I give Barker what is a traitor’s just due, before I drag you to her work, and make you watch me use your uppity, black bitch the way a feral’s supposed to be used.

You will watch, dear brother, while I make her hate what she is, before I permit her to die, just like I did to little Timmie, to your lil’ Baby Deedee, to your friend Jazz, to countless other hos who you were just a little too late to save from what they had comin’ to them!”

Carson heard the door leading into the cellblock hum, as it slid open, the same authorization codes Carson had used to gain control of the lockdown now allowing his Edmund to gain entry, the son of a bitch doubtlessly reprogramming the door’s lock behind him so that no command in the Universe would ever open it again.

He didn’t have any viral or antimatter charges on him, and it would take every round in both magazines to breach the door, by which time, all he could do was watch helplessly...

...as she got in the back seat of that bastard's car, hands shaking as she smoothed the hem of the black leather micromini, the look in her black-painted eyes...there was nothing in there anymore, the fucking redbud had her, the fucking redbud and the black motherfucker who’d fucking....

...WHA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! went the planet Terranova, Carson damn near biting his tongue, losing his balance in the attempt to get up, watching somewhat dumbfounded, as the ceiling between him and the cellblock fell down onto the floor, the door leading to the cells exploding, its MHD shielding shifting rapidly from clear to black before giving up the ghost, his half brother knocked down onto his knees with a cursing and gnashing of expensive dental implants, the building and the world on which it stood buckling under hammer blow after hammer blow from some cosmic pugilist using T-nova for a punching bag, the cell doors now flying outward from their tracks, some of them actually in one piece, Horace trying to get up, only to have his feet go out from under him again, his California Winchester M2149 massdriver pistol flying from his hand, the bastard trying to go for the backup M19 in his right ankle holster, drawing it only to have yet another WHA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! knock the weapon out of his grasp at the same time it threw him back down on the deck, this time hard enough to turn his lights out.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:51:04 ZULU

“Fuck!” interjected Captain Emory Snell, commanding Tactical Unit 1367 of the Terranova National Police’s Baldwin County Command, interjected as the sky above him exploded, the planet shook, his unit’s War Pig tactical transport went flying through the air, and the front windscreen turned into a million glass bullets pelting his personal MHD shielding.

He slammed into the back of the War Pig, the wind knocked from his chest, the world flashing red-white for a second or two, Snell staggering woozily to his feet as the transport stopped flying around, the commander of Tactical Unit 1367 shouting for his men to get the hell on their feet, they still had a job to do, as the National Police captain tried to open and lower the rear hatch, but the fucking thing wouldn’t budge without power, leaving him little choice but to crawl out through the front, squeezing his massive frame through the dead body of his top bone, still strapped into his seat, his neck and head drooping from the rest of his body at an unnatural angle, Snell struggling with the manual door release, finally getting it open, climbing out over the ruined War Pig’s side, jumping off of it onto the ground.

Dropping to his knees and grabbing up his Cali-Winnie M32A4, taking cover behind the front thrust vectrals, as blue-hot bomb-pumped gras came flying his way; Snell ducked back round to return the fire of...holy motherfuck, eighty or ninety Commie Starmarines charging towards his position as fast as their VT harnesses could move them, an assault shuttle landed in the street behind them blazing away with quad 13s in a belly turret at the center of the spaceframe.

The National Police captain aware of two unpleasantly wet sensations in the crotch and seat of his suit, eight or nine blue-hot gras pulses disintegrating the front of the War Pig, showering him with bits of carbon polymer and metal shavings as he darted back behind the rear thrust vectrals.

Jesus Christ, this was supposed to have been a simple smash and grab, do the house, do the pussy, have them tuned up and ready to go wherever they were supposed to have been going, same as the raid on the college last week, same as every other time the expat Californio had done this in the ten years since he’d been recruited by the Gnats while working as a stockman at the Walmart in the CLM.

Until now, this had been a hell of a lot easier and better than pushing carts.

Actually, this was supposed to have gone down about six or seven hours from now, but Sheriff Kidd himself had commed a few minutes ago, knowing he was drunk as fuck, stoned as fuck, fucking passed out on the bed after having to take a fucking strap to his bitch—that was how fucked up he’d been—told him to get his fat, stupid ass suited up and over to the fucking LEC, ‘cause it was on, now.

The planet and the sky shook again; for some reason—probably because he was more fucked up than Cooter Brown, whoever the hell he was—he thought about what that punkass Jeff Ledford—who he, Karl and the rest of the men on the cart crew had made their bitch—would’ve said about the sky, going all poetic about it like some brainless piece of fucking ass trying to pretend she was better than all the rest of ‘em.

Snell ducked round the rear thrust vectrals again, burning up the mag in his weapon, ducking back behind, when too goddamn many Commie troops returned his fire.

Fuck this, it wasn’t his motherfucking job to take on armed enemies, especially Commie Starmarines loaded for Aldeberanian sugarbear.

As he was thinking this, the Terranovan National Police captain was already on his feet, running hell for leather down Hatcher Street.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:53:15 ZULU

“Two Troop, get ‘em packed up and ready to go!” Commander Draco Selkirk shouted over company tacnet, as Master Pilot Ree Moseley brought the torch and the Rittermark jenny back on line.

”One Troop will secure the LZ!” he added unnecessarily.

The commander of Unbroken’s Starmarines tried not to look at the fire raining down from the sky, at all those emitted photons, tachyons and van Gripstra particles blasting the piss out of the—whoa, motherfuck! the medieval keep-like tower of the old Capitol building took a piece of hyperspace right on the chin and blew up, showering the campus of Terranova Military College with powdery bits of itself, no doubt scaring the piss out of all those Army, Starfleet, Navy, TSID and National Police officer cadets already milling about in a blind panic down there; fires were burning out of control all over Wesley, alarm sirens howling from every corner of Terranova’s pre-Enosis capital city.

He dryswallowed, also trying not to look at his plant’s onboard clock, holographically ticking down seconds inside his helmet.

They weren’t all going to cut and run like that Gnat and his team had just done, they were probably rolling more tac units and sending them his way right now, and all he had were the 82 members of Unbroken’s Starmarine company who had survived the fighting on TB, plus Ugly Duckling’s firepower.

Hell, they might even bring in the military, it wouldn’t take long at all for the 48th Shock Army, based at Fort Wheeler in Flyntsboro, to bring all nine million of its men down upon the heads of him and his people, and he didn’t even have a heavy weaps squad at his disposal.

He sighed, fogging up his faceplate in the process.

This was taking way too goddamn—

“Sir,” Sergeant Major Harriet Mangione’s holoimage said to him, 2 Troop running like hell out of the front door of the house with Kishana, her kids and her lover all in tow,”we’ve got them; on the way out now.”

Still too fucking long, Drac’s big Earther ears hearing sirens from the next street over, the whine of lots of Rolls-Royce Excalibur and Goliath MHD turbines, and the sounds of Preds and F-28 War Eagle atmo fighters whistling above his head.

The sound of boots on ferrocrete, as 2 Troop’s forty survivors plus four civs ran past 1 Troop’s forty-two, and, by sections, shot up through the opened ventral troop deck airlock.

Harriet took between a century and 150 freaking years to report over tacnet ”2 Troop aboard and secure.”

Five Section’s eleven Starmarines(temporarily absorbing Starcraftman Jenna Cleese from 3/1 Troop)were the first to ascend, the troop’s three other surviving sections covering them, until they reported they were aboard.

Then, it was 4/1 Troop’s turn, Drac dryswallowing again, as the sirens and the turbine noises got that much closer.

And, it was just 1/1 Troop’s ten Starmarines holding the LZ while 2/1 Troop took forever to get on board Ugly Duckling, Drac spotting the first set of strobing blue lights at the end of the street, with the whine of MHD turbines deafening him, almost to where he couldn’t hear 2/1 Troop’s section petty officer report they were aboard and secure.

With Drac covering the rear, backpedaling the entire time, as his command section climbed aboard the Greyhawk, Drac then reluctantly released his grip on his Hammer, so he could ascend.

Another subjective eternity, and he gained the troop deck, shouting over comms “1 Section aboard and secured! Get us the h—“

He fell facedown onto the deck, as Ree rocketed them away from Wesley at 38.88 grav, then upcycled to 97.29 gigahertz the moment she’d achieved escape velocity.

“Next stop, Venus,” Ree said over comms, as Drac struggled to get into a drop seat.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:59:54 ZULU

Unbroken broached norm long enough for Marisa to put a ten 203s through a Yanker Columbia-class heavy cruiser, Jami thinking about the war she’d just helped start, how she was leaving Sunni behind again to suffer the consequences of her actions...

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“If all goes according to plan,” she added,”we’ll need them out there, when we get home.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:01:15 ZULU

“This is the Supreme Commander of the Union,” his Governor screamed near-incoherently into his link,”to all Terranovan military starcraft still operational. Fuckin’ get after those goddamn bitches, NOW!”

The Oriskany was en route to Venus without an instant’s hesitation, that was how good of a crew Abbot had under him, more than a match for any feral and any of the starcraft they had to cannbalize, duct tape, and Afro engineer just to keep them in space; they might have been had by one of their little tricks, but, by God, his boys were going to be the ones having them, as many fucking times as they wanted, until they got bored with their nasty, stinking holes, and disposed of them like the garbage they all were.

That was for damn skippy.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:01:57 ZULU

“Give the order, Rebekah,” Angelique’s holo whispered, as the Commonwealth CDS watched more massive gaps appear in the enemy lines where Yanker warbirds had obeyed their Governor’s order to pursue Unbroken and her squadron.

“JMC to all spec ops teams and shipboard troops,” Beka said without hesitation, as Dreadnaught brought down another N.C.O. machine,”you are to deploy at once to your assigned objectives; fighters and AKVs, give the shuttles as much cover as you can.”

“Drives,” she said to Senior Lieutenant Kaela Caine,”fire the shuttle.”

Dreadnaught’s Greyhawk, carrying her Starmarine company and a team from 27 Special Reconnaisance Regiment, bulleted towards the Fall Line of Basseterre, upcycling, as soon as she cleared the frigate and achieved escape velocity, similar events taking place on every JMC combatant simoultaneously.

“JMC to assault transport force,” Rebekah then said, “stand by.”

“This is it, then,” she whispered on a private channel to her Naiad.

“This,” her wife whispered back, voice choked, Dreadnaught cycling in and out of hyperspace, 203s slamming into two Arab Harun-al Rashid-class battlewagons slewing round on their RCS thrusters to engage the smaller Commonwealth Forces frigate,”is it.”

“War,” she added.

“What had to be, Naiad,” Rebekah said sadly. “We both know that.”

More alarms howled inside the CDS’ head, Kaela rattling off damage and status, as Senior Lieutenant Yuriko Tanaka brought down one of the two Arab machines, the other entering hyperspace just as Dreadnaught’s Raptors fell upon him, the AKVs running down their intended prey, as Commander Gita Williams upcycled her ship, and Yuriko blew away a Yanker Musocgee-class warbird at point-blank range.

The Commonwealth Forces flagship flew through what remained, right into the guns of a Californio Los Angeles-class battleship, Yuriko pounding him before he could even think to open fire, Dreadnaught scraping hell out of his dorsal section, bringing down his starboard drive nacelle with a couple of well-aimed shots from the 203s, pouncing on another Californio battlewagon, just as she cleared the first one’s tail.

“What had to be,” Rebekah whispered, sighing.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:06:11 ZULU

Down to the two of them now.

Carson and Fred, all hunkered down in front of the tank, took careful aim, as the pack of Bradbury’s hounds—one of the many parting gifts the US of A had given the human race—came charging down the cellblock, past the now-ruined blockhouse, the mechanoids growling and slavering, slobber trailing from their mouths of double-ranked, long, vicious, monofilament teeth like cold fire from comets heralding the Apocolypse, the MiniFemRehab Red Dogs hanging back, waiting for the hounds to jump their prey and start tearing it apart, before going in there to finish the job themselves.

As one, Carson and the friend who’d risked all to do this thing opened fire with their pistols and rifles, splattering polymer blood and bioplastic guts all over the cellblock, mags all clattering onto the deck as the last of the hounds expired in a spray of hypervelocity, subcaliber tanc.

The Red Dogs got ready to move on them, as they struggled to reload their weapons in ti—

“Fuck,” was all Carson could think to say as all those Red Dogs were now red mist spraying the walls of the wrecked cellblock, medium-grey Commonwealth Powered Combat Dress cautiously advancing behind them, weapons at the ready.

“The Secretary General,” the Starmarine commander—sporting a captain’s four golden suns—said,”sends her compliments. Are you Sarnt Major Selkirk?”

“I was.” Carson replied, recognizing the crest of the Bess on the captain’s armor.

“Thank you, for saving our asses, sir,” Carson replied, as he shook her hand. “This is Fred Barker, late Major in the Terranovan National Police.”

”Major,” Amberly said, shaking Fred’s hand, at the same time she called for corpsmen to look after the inmates on the newly-liberated cellblock.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:07:13 ZULU

The casaba mortar splintered that cheapass door, Captain Merle Alridge, commanding Tactical Unit 57 of the Terranova National Police’s Jones County Command, jumping on that black ass, grabbing her by the back of her slacks, hearing the snap and zipper both give way, as he jerked them and her panties off her, grabbing a handful of hair, as he shoved her down into the sofa, whaling away on that ass when it tried to struggle in vain against a man standing a meter eighty-three and massingnearly two hundred kilos, mashing its face down into the cushions of the sofa, holding it there, hearing its muffled screams, that alone making his johnson push against the crotchplate of his suit, wanting to get out and show it what fucking was supposed to be al—

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:08:12 ZULU

Trembling, Rosalind Smith sat up on the couch, watching the headless corpse of the fat pig, who’d assaulted her fall lifelessly onto the carpet, the hole between his shoulders still smoking, all but one of the others with him similarly dead.

“We gotta get outta here,” Bubba said, as Neesha came back with a bundle of clothes.

“We’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed,” she said to Rosalind,”but, Smitty’s right, we gotta go, soon.”

Rosalind dumbly took the offered clothes, and nodded her head.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:11:26 ZULU

“Send signal to Commanding General Selkirk,” Tarrant snapped to Risdon’s comms contractor,”order him to withdraw all Federation forces from Twice-Born, and redeploy them at once to Terranova.”

“Sir?!” the R.A.G. leadng tech queried, as the battered Oswald battleship’s bridge shook itself to pieces round him, the Chairman of the Executive Council screaming,”goddamn you, do as told, now!”

Seventeen more enemy armies had ported themselves onto Terranova’s main continent, with twenty of the other 25 relentlessly driving their Yanker antagonists towards its west coast.

There was heavy fighting reported in New Athens, Atlanta Three, Curtis LeMay, and Flyntsboro, with the Capitol under siege; several National Police commands—including the Bibb County Command—had mutinied, refusing to obey either their commanders or the government in New Athens, while Kemp been killed by the first shots to strike the Capitol building, what remained of the House of Commons immediately voting to install Micheal Bauer as Prime Minister of the Union in his stead, the commander of Mont Noir doing a better job of coordinating his Union’s defense than Tarrant’s idiotic only begotten son would have.

That bloody trog had gone after Unbroken and her squadron, hellbent on getting that slag, her bitch and her children back, taking over two thousand strike cruisers and heavy cruisers with him, the remainder of the Coreward Command choosing to stay behind, and defend their homeworld instead of obeying their Governor’s half-coherent order to pursue them; Lilith, of course, having warned Commonwealth Forces HQ they were coming, she being a great deal more canny than Leeleth and never would’ve fallen for one of Jameison Kirk’s idiotic strategems.

“Reinforce MHDs!” he shouted, when the Risdon took another bad hit from a DirtCom machine appearing in normal space just long enough to pound the R.A.G.’s flagship.

“Drives!” snapped the Oswald High Commissioner.”I’dlike to be able to have translight capability sometime before we’re blasted to atoms!”

“Working on it, sir!” the chief flight engineer said, same as all the other times Tarrant had asked.

“Of course you are,” Tarrant mouthed sourly to himself, the battleship staggering from another bad hit, the forward shielding radiating violet and black, more of the wiring snaking down, spitting photons as it whipped across the deck.

The Chairman of the Executive Council cursing his son’s stupidity one more time, as he repeated his order to reinforce MHDs.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:51:28 ZULU

“Skipper,” Stevie reported, as Unbroken closed to five hundred klicks of Venus, and made ready to downcycle to norm,”am detecting Ugly Duckling on final approach vector to Commonwealth Forces Headquarters Orbital Facility Tango; all our Starmarines are all alive and well, as are Kishana Winslow, her lover and the two children.”

“They’re still with us,” Exec Claudia Littlejohn then said. “The rest of the squadron, all our Raptors.”

“Send signal to the Defence Staff, Exec,” she added,”Alfa priority, tell them we are coming in hot, request—”

“This is Guy Thomas Zellner, Governor Of the Republican Union Of Terranova,”old Gotchanow’s holoimage slavered, with over twenty-one hundred Yanker warbirds barely three hundred kiloklicks directly aft, and closing fast,”ordering the outlaw regime calling itself the Communist State of Venus to surrender those two black bitches and them goddamn brats to me, now!”

Jami snapped in reply,”I am the warship Unbroken of the Solarian CommonwealthStar Force! Maybe, we didn’t make ourselves clear, North Coast, so we will explain it to you, again!”

“Fucking kill all ‘em goddamn howlers!” his Governor screamed, Abbott snapping to his men,”Upcycle, now, Mister Keith; fico, fire at will, Shooter, launch Preadators and King Cobras, MHD beams to full power, max deflection, divert all available power to MHD shie—”

The Governor of the Union suddenly started to float up just before being slammed down onto the deck blasting itself to pieces all round him, that little black bitch of Jeff Selkirk’s turning and driving 203s right down the Oriskany’s throat, right inside his guns where he couldn’t return fire, Abbott screaming for his helmsman to “fuckin’ open the goddamn range, you stupid fuckin’ bonesmoker, open the goddamn ra—aw, fuck!”

Finally, that brainless bitch working the helm veered this big heavy cruiser away from the smaller frigate, furiously trying to calculate a vector which would have Oriskany getting the drop on the Unbroken, Abbott shouting into his plant’s laryngitial mic,” Red Suits to the transportal stage!.”

“The fuck you say!” his Supreme Commander spat back at him, Oriskany now right on top of the little Commie frigate, his fico letting fly with all forty 203s, forty bomb-pumped graser warheads headed straight for that little black bitch.

“She’s worth a hundred meg, sir,” Abbott reminded him,”and, after all the little bitch’s done to us over the years, it’s worth you shooting my ass dead right here and now, and damning me to an eternity as one of them, just to have her stripped down, dragged onto our deck, and thrown down at our feet, before we turn the boys loose on her stin—”

“Jesus fuckin’ toast!” the fico swore, all that gras bouncing off Unbroken’s forward shielding like hailstones, the goddamn little bitch moving in for the kill, Abbott screaming,”fuck Jesus Christ, you dumb sons of bitches, fucking get us the hell away from her, before she—”

The turbolift doors sprayed themselves all over the rest of the deck, alarms screaming inside the head of the Governor of the Union as the Oriskany took his time evading, the chief engineering officer shouting out,”starboard nacelle’s des—”

The rest of what he had to say was incoherent, the Terranovan Columbia-class heavy cruiser taking it up the ass, the bridge sparking, smoking, exploding into flame, both the fico and the defensive countermeasures officer screaming, as they burned, and flew across the deck to their deaths, Abbott screaming,”Somebody take over fire control, now!” someone else acknowledging that order, struggling to return Unbroken’s fire.

The Governor of the Union cursing Jeff Selkirk’s miserable, fucking, howling, rabid bulldyker of a daughter, calling her a bitch over and over, as she upcycled to low translight, the Oriskany’s first officer ordering his helmsman to continue the hunt.

“Reinforce MHDs,” Jami barked, her warbird downcycling to light speed, falling upon the Oriskany again, Marisa and Stevie already carrying out the order to ”continue firing!”

Unbroken jinking, burning, upcycling again, all her working primary massdrivers driving 203s into the Oriskany’s saucer and inverted wedge spaceframe, as he attempted to turn and bring his own guns to bear on Unbroken, a shot carrying away his port nacelle, while others punctured his portside RCS thrusters.

Micki upcycled the ship still again, Michiko reporting all but a hundred and sixty hostile warbirds dead, gone, and good riddance to the motherfuckers.

Unbroken downcyled, flew through momentarily empty space, her 2ic jinking, burning, upcycling, just as 203s went streaking past her nose, the frigate closing rapidly to just centimeters off Oriskany’s stern, Marisa pounding the hostile heavy cruiser unmercifully, Claudia adding her 50s to the fusillade, as Unbroken flew over the stricken enemy heavy.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:53:59 ZULU

“Goddamn fucking little bitch!” his Governor screamed, Abbott surveying the wreckage which had been the Oriskany’s bridge, Major Micheal Keith reporting in the semi-darkness:

“The civilians?” the orbital’s commander, a major in the Commonwealth Forces Logistics Corps, asked.

“Safe and sound in the core shelter area, ma’am,” the Logistics Corps master tech sergeant, replied, as Drac stared into the ops deck’s master holoproj, watching Unbroken fight off the deadstick Yanker flagship’s Preads and King Cobras trying to destroy the orbital, another one of the ops staff, this one a corporal, shouting,”starcraft in transit, zero by zero, two-one-zera kiloklicks downrange, closing us rapidly at two-won-zera kilokips...eleven Commonwealth Forces Dauntless-class frigates, plus their Raptors all moving to engage enemy fighters and AKVs, as per Senior Captain Lanier’s order.”

“The heavy cruiser’s guns have been knocked out,” another one of the ops staff reported,”but he’s still not making any move to either back away from us or go NGE.”

“He can’t,” the master tech sergeant reported. “Both his drive nacelles are gone, and his RCS thrusters have been smashed.”

“What about his telegate?” Drac asked.

“It’s also—” the tech sergeant started to reply, Drac seeing the new tachyon-emission patterns for himself, not needing the all-too-familiar cry of “starcraft in transit! Zero by zero, two decimal two-five megaklicks downrange, closing rapidly at three-zera-zera kilokips,” or the immediate ID of them as Terranovan Musocgee-class strike cruisers and Columbia-class heavies to know what they were.

There were over thirty thousand of the sumbitches, his older half-brother’s ugly black ass floating in front of him, announcing:

“This is Commanding General Jefferson D. Selkirk, Chairman of the Union Security Council. You have four fugitives from Terranovan justice which we demand you turn over at—you fuckin’ bitch! You goddamn fucking little whore!”

“Unbroken’s opened fire on the lead Terranovan machine!” one of the ops deck personnel shouted unnecessarily, as his niece’s warbird, after upcycling to light speed, closing, and pummeling Jeff’s flagship with two volleys of 203s from three hundred kiloklicks out, closed to within his guns, and pounded him with a third, every Commonwealth frigate, fighter and Raptor immediately streaking towards the new-arrived enemy machines, the triple ring of Defense Star ortillery platforms and the weapons on all the orbitals letting fly at the same time, another one of the ops staff shouting,”Oriskany’s launching multiple assault shuttles on a direct vector for the core. Core, South , Southeast and Southwest Cylinder massdrivers are engaging! ”

“All available Starmarines and Gendarmes to the core shelter area, now!” the commander of the orbital ordered.

Before she turned to Drac, telling him:

“Your people as well, Mister Selkirk.”

“Sir!” Drac replied, half running off the ops deck.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:01:00 ZULU

“He’s done what?!” Tarrant, not believing what Bauer’s holoimage was telling him—though, knowing his arsehole of an only begotten son, he should’ve—demanded, the Risdon shaking himself to pieces all round the Oswald High Commissioner.

“Guy’s countermanded your order to Commanding General Selkirk,” Bauer replied, the Union Security Council’s subterranian command post flashing and quaking in the background,”Mister Chairman; all surviving Terranovan aerospace assets previously deployed to Twice-Born are now in the Solar system, the remaining Federation forces chose to comply with your order and are now—”

“I am aware of that, Bauer,” Tarrant snapped, the Chairman of the Executive Council swearing under his breath as his flagship sustained yet another bad hit, watching, as the additional Federation reinforcements were having little effect on the battle raging in the skies over this miserable boghole of a planet Terranova, that bitch having ordered as many Commonwealth and allied machines as could be spared from the fighting on TB to proceed here to counter his reinforcements.

A shimmering appeared in front of him, his runt of a Deputy Commissioner, Sir Heathcoate Saint John, shouting through the quantum tunner,”quickly, sir, through the focus!”

The Oswald High Commissioner not thinking twice about unbelting from his chair and running like hell through the shimmering onto the transportal stage of what had to be the ORS William Joyce, his Home Secretary stupidly asking,”are you all right, sir?”

“Like you’d give a toss, Heathcoate,” Tarrant snapped, the stage going out from under his feet, the Chairman of the Executive Council managing to steady himself barely in time, the “C” of Oswald State Security, William Derreg, telling them,”the Risdon’s done for.”

Queen Elizabeth breaking out into the midst of a squadron of Ozzie Wu-Lung-class destroyers, Linne hammering away at all of them before they could wheel about and blast the larger Commonwealth Star Force starfighter carrier in their midst, as Jeanie sent them crawling up the tailpipes of an N.C.O. Charles Olmstead-class battleship, Linne letting fly with a volley of 203s, Jeanie veering sharply away, saling through momentarily empty space, 203s streaking past her, Bess’ senior pilot whipping her ship around, Linne pummeling a Casshole Vancouver-class machine with a merciless fusillade of bomb-pumped graser warheads.

One of which put a pulse through his battered forward shielding to smash him into a trillion blue-hot sparks.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General all too aware that could’ve just as easily been the Bess.

Might still be, before this battle were over.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Johnathan Davis, Miguel Troupe, Jose Gomez, Brad Stripling, Corneilus Clark, Barry Leonard, Toby Pryor, Avery MacGhee, Terry Battle, Pop Skinner, Tyler Wooten, Josh Cairns, both Woodwards, and Johnathan’s little cousin from Ezra, ‘Dre Brooks, all busted down the door to their apartment, jumping on both them hoochies as they sat up in bed—so their men could see their titties—the look on their faces like jocritters getting shined.

They tried to hug on each other, but Johnathan and his crew weren’t having none of that bullshit, pulling that white girl off Retha, making her watch, again, as Johnathan beat his bitch’s ungrateful black ass down, and boned her good; Felicia just kept squirming in Battle’s grip, trying to keep Retha from getting what was coming to her for not doing right, begging Johnathan to leave her alone.

Battle and the others just passed Felicia around, screwing her with fingers, fists, cutters, gun barrels, a broom handle, dicks, whatever they could find to shove up in there; they even pissed and jizzed on her, and she tried to pretend she didn’t like any of that, when she probably made Horace’s black bitch do her like that every night, after she got through doing that to her own bitches.

She sure enough could holler, especially when they made her watch Johnathan screw Retha one last time, forcing her down on the floor on her knees, blindfolding her, blowing her fuckin’ head off with a M2149, before firing up a cutter and performing himself an at-home abortion on her nasty black ass; another goddamn piece of pussy, and they damn sure didn’t need any more of that shit going round.

Man, that white bitch sho’ ‘nuff could holler, Johnathan turning round, bitchslapping the cooter across her face, grabbing it by the chin, forcing it to look up in his eyes, slapping her again ‘cause she was tryin’ that crying bullshit on him, grabbing her face again, telling her, in no uncertain terms,”now, you gonna learn what fuckin’s s’posed to be like, from every goddamn one of us, ‘til we get bo’ed with yo’ shit and—”

“Leave her alone!” that punkass prokbooy Carson Selkirk had the nerve to tell him, Johnathan not even turning round, replying,”man, I ain’t studyin’—”

...Li whimpering, struggling against Horace, as he undid her pants and started reaching inside her panties...reaching into where Li’s private spot was...he was kissing on her, telling her “I love you, baby,” and “You gonna gimme some pussy, ain’t ya....”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:08:01 ZULU

...the PDMD13’s mag clattered spent and smoking onto the carpeting, Felicia cradling the mutilated body of her lover in her arms, sobbing, not a fucking thing he could do for her.

“Baby—” Annesha started to whisper, reaching out her hand.

“Always too little,” he whispered, eyes on the charred, greasy smears which had been the animals who’d done this to both of them,” always too fucking late.”

Smitty went past them, trying to tend to Felicia, trying to separate her from what remained of Retha, finally succeeding after a few moments.

“Always,” Carson repeated,”too goddamn late.”

“...baby,” Mama whispered, squeezing her daughter’s knee again, after parking the car,”baby, I’m sorry...when you needed me the most, I wasn’t there for you, I had to act like I hated you, I...”

“It’s all right, Mama,” Jami whispered, looking into her eyes, at the tears running down her cheeks.

“It ain’t all right,” Mama said, shaking her head. “I turned my back on you, ‘cause it was easier than watching your daddy and all ‘em other men do those things to you, watching you try to stand up for yourself in spite of them, and get knocked down every damn time, watching you and her together, both of y’all afraid, knowing even if y’all did manage to find a way, they’d just...”

She trailed off, Jami telling her mama it was all right again, Mama simply whispering,”c’mon,” as she took off her seat belt and got out of the car to walk down Long Street...
16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:15:12 ZULU

...the commander of the Unbroken screaming as her ship took another hit, Marisa and Stevie giving this Enterprise just as good in return, Micki upcycling the ship, flying her into the middle of a squadron of Musocgee-class strike cruisers, Unbroken’s weapons engineering officers letting fly with a volley of 203s from massdrives and AKVs, the darva alarm howling, Stevie interjecting “goddamn son of a bitch!” as thebattered Commonwealth Star Force frigate briefly upcycled again.

A volley of 203s headed straight for her, Micki violently wrenching her ship around, Claudia’s 50s dealing with the inbound volley, while Marisa blasted the Enterprise with a salvo from all ten massdrivers, Stevie’s Raptors pounding him some more from several vectors, as Micki brought them well inside the heavy cruiser’s guns, and Marisa fired yet another salvo from her guns into him.

“MHD beam forward emitters back on line,” Ariel shouted, the heavy trying to back away, open up the range so he could open up on the Unbroken, Micki not having any of that shit, Claudia reporting”channeling MHD beam output through forward emitters, full power, max deflection!”

“He’s calling his Preads and King Cobras back home!” Michiko shouted at the same time Jami told her AKV controller to have her birds form a defensive wedge round the frigate, and to launch more of them to reinforce the ones already in flight, fighters and AKVs clustering round both warbirds, as they came at each other yet again.

“...goddamn you bitches!” he screamed, tearing the house apart, breaking down doors, going from room to room looking for his goddamn little howlers, belt in hand ready to discipline both of ‘em for this latest defiance of their Daddy’s authority over their ungrateful, goddamn, spoiled-rot little asses.

“Where the fuck are you?!” he screamed into the empty house, slamming the belt hard against the upstairs hallway. “You fuckin’ better come out here, and take what’s comin’ to you, now, or, by God, I’ll make the both of you sorry you ever got that idea into your fuckin’ heads!”

The little howler’s door was open—fucking thing had been unlocked and, sure as hell, not by him—her halter top and tight hip-hugger jeans not lying all on the floor by her bed like they had been after she’d got naked and fucking opened ‘em thirteen year old legs for her Daddy, when the goddamn chickenheaded little black bitch had fucking made her Daddy fuck her in every one of her goddamn stin—

The other goddamn little bitch was gone too, her clothes not on the floor of their bedroom, where she’d left them after she’d gotten naked and opened up her fucking twat for him.

He fucking knew he shouldn’t have gone to Bull n’ Dee’s, after he’d gotten through tuning ‘em up, but he couldn’t help it, they fucking made him go to that lowlife fucking dive, fucking made him get drunk and drugged up out of his mind, so that he’d be even more in the mood to fuck ‘em when he finally got home, made him grope the chickenheads waiting tables there, made him make them suck him off in that nasty-ass goddamn bathroom in the back.

Goddamnit, they fucking knew this was the night he and Thurbert Baker fucking swapped ‘em out, they fuckin’ knew that, ‘cause they fuckin’ made him participate in that sick fuckin’ shit as well; nothing but licentious goddamn, fuckin’ howlers, the both of ‘em.

He kept tearing through the house, finally stumbling onto the carport, where the car his bitch of a wife used to go teach intellectual honesty and muff diving down at the tradoc was supposed to be.

She’d fucking taken that, and the other howler too, fucking trying to run away from him, stupid goddamn fucking bitches, trying to fucking run away from him.

That was fine.

He’d just have to go back out, hunt their stinking asses down and fuckin’ show ‘em how stupid that was...

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:16:27 ZULU

“...fuckin’ open the goddamn range, George, you stupid fuckin’ bonesmoker!” Commanding General Jefferson Davis Selkirk, Chairman of the Union Security Council, screamed at Republican Union Starcraft Enterprise’s helmsman, the Terranovan flagship staggering from hit after hit, that little bitch not even giving them a chance to defend themselves, the battleship’s Preadtor starfighters and KingCobra AKVs being blown out of the sky all round him.

“Twenty-nine thousand, five hundred ninety of 39,000 of our vehicles destroyed!” Major Leopold Speck, the Enterprise’s science officer, reported.”Another 3,500 deadstick and out of the fight!”

“Prime Minister Bauer is on the line for you again, Commanding General,”the contractor at comms spoke up,”ordering you to—”

“I don’t fuckin’ take orders from bulldykers in fuckin’ drag, “ the Chairman of the Union Security Council, roared,”and neither do you; the orders of the Governor of our Union stand, you get me?!”

“Five by five, Commanding General,” the comm operator replied, as Captain Andre Walter finally had enough room to cut loose with the 203s, the bomb-pumped gras pulses bouncing off her forward shielding, the bitch driving more 203s into the Enterprise, those BPG bouncing off his forward shielding, augmented by the heavy cruiser’s MHD beam arrays.

As Walter let loose with another volley, the comm operator told him,” Chairman Tarrant’s on the line now, issuing a Federation—”

“Since when do any of us take orders from non-Terranovans?!” Selkirk snapped, watching Unbroken deflect that salvo, rapidly closing the range between the two ships again.

“I will say it again,” he added. “We take orders from the Governor of our Union and from no other motherfucker!”

“Yes, sir,” the comm operator replied, as Walter fired more 203s at the Unbroken.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:17:00 ZULU

“A-VENGE! KOUHOUTEEEEKKKK!” Drac screamed, smashing in the face of a Yanker Red Suit with the butt of his HMD13, spraying three more of his friends with a burst from his PDMD13, his integral VT harness driving him forward, deeper into the melee; before the Oriskany had been cut to ribbons by the guns on the core and South Cylinder, he’d managed to launch sixteen SAC-130 assault shuttles, holding over sixteen hundred Starfleet Security and other starcraftmen.

Thirteen of those shuttles had been blasted out of the sky by the oribital’s guns before they could even reach the core, leaving three hundred of the enemy to bull their way inside in an attempt to snatch Tasha, Kiki, and their children to face Yanker “justice,” Unbroken’s and the oribital’s Starmarines and Gendarmes rushing them the instant the sons of bitches set foot inside the core shelter area, and, it had all been bayonets and rifle butts from there.

His faceplate shattered into a trillion pieces, four or five BPG pulses demolishing his helmet, the commander of Unbroken’s Starmarines only taking brief notice of how wet and sticky his face was, the taste of metal on his tongue, teeth and snot flying from him, blood and bits of bone geysering from his right shoulder, chest, abdomen, left thigh and left knee, Drac returning the enemy’s fire with both HMD and PDMD, more tanc driven through his shielding, into him, as he kept charging forward.

Right into a riflebutt wielded by the Governor of the fucking Union, grim-visaged, grey-suited Death incarnate, the bonesmoking North Coast son of a bitch having the indecnecy to demand, through a mouth full of blood,”what the fuck is wrong with you, prokboy?!”

Drac pistolwhipped the bastard across what remained of his face, blood, snot, bone and implanted dentures flying everywhere, the force of the blow sending old Gotchanow flying backwards, the veteran Commonwealth Starmarine officer’s breathing coming in ragged gasps, as he spat back, “goddamn bastard, you fucking helped murder my sister!”

The motherfucker shaking his head as he regained his footing, ranting, raving and foaming at the mouth,”you stupid motherfucker, I murdered lots of sisters in my time, do you really fuckin’ think yours was any different from any of the others?! That what I did was wrong?! “

“Your fuckin’ brother,” he added,”had balls enough to thankme for what had to be—”

Raising his PDMD13, aiming it dead at the miserable son of a bitch, Dunstan closed the triggering circuit, and kept firing, as he fell a long way down into darkness.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:20:01 ZULU

“Thirty-three thousand, one hundred eighty of 39,000 of our birds are gone!” Speck shouted out. “4,200 more deadstick and out of the fight, and another 819 withdrawing from battle!”

“What?!” Selkirk demanded, screaming into his link,”all Terranovan warbirds, you are ordered to stand and fight, goddamnit, stand and fight!”

“Fire control,” he added,”anyone who doesn’t follow that order is to be blasted out of the sky, you hear me?!”

As many of the remaining Terranovan machines went up as fled into hyperspace, mocking the Chairman of the Union Security Council, the Enterprise’s fico shouting,”another 180 have disengaged from combat, 487 more have been destroyed.”

In a white-hot flash, the Chairman of the Union Security Council, the screams of dead men ringing in his ears, found himself flying across the deck, through the master holodisplay and into a wall, the impact turning out all his lights.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 07:22:05 ZULU

She couldn’t stop shaking.

The commander of the Unbroken saw all those broken bodies, all those bits and pieces of combat starcraft, and she could only tremble in the presence of all that terrible carnage, gripping her chair until her hands hurt, trying desperately to fight the shakes, keep some semblance of control over herself.

Nearly eighteen thousand Commonwealth and allied warbirds, over three million women and men, amongst the dead, God alone only knew how many more dead and dying on Terranova right now—

“Skipper,” Michiko whispered in her head,”Sergeant Major Mangione’s on the line for you.”

“F-fuck,” Jami whispered, dead certain as to what that meant...her own uncle...

Just another one who had to pay the price, because of her.

“I told you already, luv,” her wife’s voice whispered in her head,”you are not to blame.”

Jami nodded absently, took a deep, ragged breath, shook like a wet dog, and stammered:“E-echo h-her to m-my p-plant.”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

18) The Night Morning“Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,Makes the night morning and the noontide night:”

—William Shakespeare, Richard III I.iv

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:11:01 ZULU

“HOUNDS INBOUND!” Lance Corporal Sage McWhorther shouted, cutting loose with her SPAM130 at the approaching Yanker Army Ranger Light Infantry battalion and their Bradbury's hounds, as they fell upon the sabre squadron of Solarian Commonwealth Army mechanized infantry in the burning wreckage of Phenix City.

“One and Two Sections,” Captain Rachel Kelley shouted over squadron tacnet, as she brought her HMD13 heavy massdriver to bear and started shooting,“ stand your ground and open fire! Three and Four Sections, leapfrog ‘em! Five through Ten Sections,where the hell are you guys?!”

“We’ve been outflanked by a company of Yanker mechies, Rache, about eight hundred meters directly behind you,” Lieutenant Leesa Tharpe’s voice replied, as two of Rachel’s mech infantry sections took to the air, using their VT harnesses to go up and over the Yankers, the four 120-ton FV.5250 Lynxes with her opening up with their 130mm main massdrivers and their coax and sponson-mounted 50mm tribarrelled massdrivers.

“Understood,” Rachel said, dropping twenty or thirty of those damn mechanoids with a volley of 13mm bomb-pumped graser warshot, thirty or forty more coming straight at her, spittle foaming as it flew from their maws, the Rangers behind them hollering,“git some, git some, git su—”

“Been a long time, since I rock and roll. Been a long time, since I took that stroll,” sang six more FV.5250s, as the inverted-delta winged PARAWIG merkavas bulleted in behind the Rangers, all guns blazing, and their mech infantry sections deployed via VT harness from their bellies.

“And, now we’re the ones doing the outflanking,” Leesa’s holo wryly commented, as Rachel took fire from at least a dozen Yanker M32A4s at once, her MHD shielding somehow—somehow—managing to soak it all up, the enemy, in his turn, getting himself caught in a crossfire, while the women he had been trying to hunt down and massacre ran past Rachel and the four sections with her, heading for the momentary safety of the coastline just a two or three klicks behind 4 Sabre Squadron of the 51st Utopia Planitia Volunteer Mechanized Regiment, aka “The Hard n’ Fast Fifty-First.”

Only momentary, however.

Glancing over to her left, Rachel saw a column of Yanker AV-118D Seminole Longbow merkavas coming down Terranova Highway 431, moving fast towards the refugees, 130s flying from their main guns, coax and sponson-mounted tribarrelled 50s slicing through the air with pulses of electric-blue.

“RHA BK Three, Hard n’ Fast Four-Six,” Rachel said over brigade tacnet, as she kept pouring it on,“ I have a column of Yanker merks coming up Terranova 431, 345 meters NW of my position and in weapons range of the refugees.”

Blue-hot bomb-pumped gras—152s and 203s—came whistling down on the Yanker mechies, sending their merkavas straight to Hell in a roar of white-hot novae.

“Rock n’ Roll” pounded out of twenty sets of speakers, as the Lynxes of 3 and 7 Sabre Squadrons descended on the surviving enemy from directly behind, as her people took to the air, their VT harnesses propelling them toward the surviving Yankers from the front, their Lynxes following close behind, all guns blazing, the bastards, no longer having the upper hand, trying to scatter and run, only to be blown apart everywhere they turned.

In a few seconds, it was all over.

For the moment.

Master Sergeant Callie Fleming’s voice said over squadron tacnet “sir, am receiving telemetry from 3 Battery, Royal Horse Artillery forward observation drone; multiple lifesigns in the church 1,100 metres due northwest of us, 640 human males, native to Terranova and New Carolina, in the churchyard and the church proper.

“A-VENGE! KOHOUTEK!” Rachel shouted, taking point as she pushed her harness’ vectored thrusters for all they were worth, as she echoed the telemetry from the forward observer drone to her plant.

Those miserable Yanker sons of bitches had slashed and burned a kill zone five hundred meters in every direction, setting up heavy weaps all along that line.

Those gunners opened up with their 130mm Man-Portable Artillery Systems, the moment they saw all that Commonwealth grey coming to kill them, Rachel evading best she could, returning the enemy’s fire with magazine after hot, smoking magazine of BPG, her MHD shielding rapidly shifting up the spectrum, giving everthing a purplish-black tint, a 50mm gras punching through with sufficent energy left to shatter her faceplate, the Commonwealth Army captain just barely aware of something wet, sticky and metallic seeping down the right side of her face, pooling in her mouth.

Rachel spitting out blood, teeth and bits of glass, as she broke through the heavy-weaps perimeter, spraying a squad of mech infantry guarding the church doors, the BPG rounds which hadn’t expended themselves killing Yankers making sawdust of the solid ironwood doors, the thirty-five year old sabre squadron commander kicking and rifle-butting some more of the sons of bitches in the church entryway, as she landed on her feet, her command section at her side.

As a little girl’s screaming and pleading with her tormentors on the other side of the double doors separating narthex from nave spurred the ten Commonwealth women into action, more BPG warshot easily disintegrating the doors and much of the walls surrounding them, as they charged forward.

Straight into another vision of Hell incarnate.

The ceiling was populated by the mutilated bodies of girls, ranging in age from six to sixteen, stripped naked, hooks shoved into any orifice their murderers damn well felt like shoving them into.

Amid broken-up pews, scraps of school uniforms, stacks of heavy massdrivers, and scattered hymnal and prayer books, knelt 300 girls, naked from the waist down, many with fresh welts and scars from previous canings on their buttocks.

Another girl, thirteen or fourteen,was tied up to the altar caked with dried and drying blood, the poor little thing sobbing faintly, as her bruised, brutalized body slowly bled out, a massive oranguatan of a Yanker bonesmoker caught in the act of further mutilation, when ten 13mm bomb-pumped graser pulses caught him full in his hairy man-ape chest, and sent his parts and pieces flying.

The Yanker in full-dress over by where the pulpit should be was holding a wooden schoolmaster’s cane in his gloved hand, attempting to grab the next little girl he had kneeling and bent over at his jackboots with his other paw, before a shot from Rachel’s HMD put a final, permanent stop to that shit.

The other 150 of the murdering animals, unprepared to take on 10 armed women, made an effort to either reach their heavy massdrivers or go for their sidearms, Rachel and the others being none too gentle in putting them down for good.

“Cut them loose,” Rachel said, as she made her way to the girl lying on the altar.

Dear God, dear God in heaven, that miserable son of a bitch had cut her open from her throat to her anus, after he’d...he’d...dear God in heaven...

Blood was pouring out everywhere, her skin ice-cold to the touch, her eyes glassy, breathing shallow, her voice coming in rasping sobs.

“CORPSMAN!” she hollered over section tacnet. “Need a fuckin’ corpsman over here, at the double!”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:28:00 ZULU

LogCorps tech crews swarmed all over the battered spaceframe of Solarian Commonwealth Starcraft Unbroken, as she sat in airdock of Commonwealth Forces Headquarters’ Orbital Facility Romeo’s Dorsal Cylinder, two women looking at her through the window of her assigned docking bay’s observation gallery.

Why is your daughter dead?! she thought but dared not ask. You should be pissed at me, I fucked up really badly, and got her killed over TB, same as I did to my own—

“I wish I could answer that,” SADM Tarpley said softly,”for your sake as well as mine, Jami; your uncle was a good man.”

Jami nodded.

During the final few minutes of the engagement here, Unbroken had moved to intercept the incoming Yanker reinforcements, led by her father, leaving the heavy cruiser Jami thoughtshe’d rendered unable to threaten Orbital Facility Tango and those they’d been ordered to get clear of Yanker so-called justice to launch a boarding action against it, her uncle, Commander Draco Selkirk, commander of her squadron’s Starmarine regiment, leading both Unbroken’s and the oribital’s Starmarines and Gendarmes against the enemy.

Led by old Gotchanow himself.

And, Uncle Drac had just taken too much hurt to live, 13s, 50s, and 130s had burned and busted him up everywhere, his face...shit, he fucking had noface, everything that thick skull of his was supposed to protect...pulp, same as most of his other internal organs, pulp, and him far beyond the pale of metastas, nanotechnology, regen rays and all the other tools of twenty-third century medical science.

She couldn’t even face his twin brother, when she’d commed him.

All her fault, if she hadn’t been so greedy for closure and revenge against her father, Drac and Carson’s older brother, hadn’t left the Oriskany in a condition where he could launch his boarding action, maybe, her uncle wouldn’t have been killed.

She swallowed hard, deeply, raggedly inhaled.

While Unbroken swam blurrily in her field of vision.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:40:18 ZULU

Senior Lieutenant Ariel Saint Marie Dixon’s shaking hands fumbled with the laser lighter and the pack of smokes she was trying to winnow from the left breast pocket of her greys, as she sat on a bench in Orbital Facility Romeo’s Dorsal Hab, nothing else to do for the first time in days.

Not quite true, she did have a lot to do, and she’d get back to shimming her way through the ‛tween deck spaces, and helping to fix what had been broken on ship soon enough.

Right now, though...

Right now, she thought of Mister Selkirk, killed in the process of keeping Guy Scumbag Zellner and his thugs away from those who only wanted to live and be left the hell alone; he and 21 others killed in the last day or so, just because of people who wanted to do harm to those who hadn’t harmed anyone.

Unbroken’s starship engineering officer sighed, puffing a Chronic Blonde into life, sighing again, all the smoke coming out at once.

Riana had been on board such a short time, so it seemed, after passing out of T-School, hard worker, really sweet kid, didn’t at all act like someone with decorated, high-ranking parents in the service, let alone the daughter of the stanstarfor commander.

Indigo Myles never even had the chance to enjoy the promotion she’d deserved, another hard worker, the best engineer she had, would’ve been heading up her own engineering team someday, if she hadn’t given up her life trying to drag Riana from the snake’s nest of live wires which had ended up killing them both.

Ariel never had the chance to get to know Roscorrine Perez, she’d been one of the replacements for those her team had lost in the fight over Terranova...shit, had it been a week ago already?

Fuck.

Ariel turned to look around, and there she was, just standing there, trying to think of something, anything to say.

Finally deciding on,”those things aren’t good for you.”

“Fuck off!” Ariel replied sharply, taking a long drag on her ciggie, blowing smoke in now-Pilot Major Rhiannon Moseley’s face, Unbroken’s starship engineering officer still shaking all over, Ree putting a hand on her right shoulder, Ariel wrenching herself away from that warm, reassuring touch.

“I’ve got work to do,” she told her,”soon as I finish this; ship’s a freaking mess, or haven’t you noticed?!”

“I just came from there,” Ree added. “The three new additions to your team are on board; I told ‘em to stow their gear, and get to work, you’d be joining them soon enough.”

“I thought you’d have gone offship,” Ariel snapped, taking another drag from her cigarette,”and spend your time partying or shopping or whatever the hell else you do with yourself when there’s fucking work to be done.”

That hurt, Ariel knew it hurt, but, fuck, Ree had never been anything but a pain in the ass the four years they’d known one another.

Nothing else but.

Nothing else but...stubbing the remains of the cigarette out on the palm of her gauntleted right hand, Ariel got up off the bench, and started walking toward the lifts leading back to the airdock.

Without even asking, Ree was at her side.

Nothing but a goddamn pain in the ass.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:04:19 ZULU

“Police in the Republician Union of Terranova,” Harrold Osgoode’s holo said,“ have arrested 25-year old Felicia Burton in the grisly rape-murder of her pregnant teenage girlfriend and her unborn child. The murdered girl, Carethia James, was found nude in a public recycling facility in Gibson Valley, after her mother filed a missing-persons report with the Terranovan National Police.

According to a Terranovan National Police spokeswoman, James was shot three times in the head with a massdriver pistol, after having been raped and sodomized repeatedly with an aerogel strapon vibrator, measuring eighty centimetres in length,[don’t they all, he thought bitterly to himself] after which she was forced onto her knees, blindfolded, bound hand and foot, then executed for daring to have a normal, Canon sexual relationship with a man and wanting to have his baby; her fetus, almost nine months old, was cut out of her body by this woman,” all the while Harry was saying this, Jamie Murdoch’s former employers were showing every bruise on Carethia’s nude, mutilated body, especially the bruises on her breasts, thighs and buttocks...as well as her mutilated womb....“ this horrible creature rendered incapable of having children of her own following a hysterectomy eight years ago, according to doctors. ”

They showed a holo of Felicia Burton, taken at the time of her supposed arrest—slight build, long blonde hair—as Osgoode adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his bald head and continued his spiel:

“Burton, who police say has gone under the aliases Felicia Scott and Felicia Duncan, has been in trouble with the law before...in November of 2274, according to Cascadia State Police Coloniel Mark Johnson, in the course of an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of her three-year old daughter, it was discovered that the child was born after she had had her hysterectomy; when the police questioned her further, according to Coloniel Johnson, she fled Cascadia to her father’s home in Salem Four, in the State of Evergreen.

Before her hysterectomy, she had a daughter, now nine, removed from her custody three years ago following allegations she sexually abused her; the girl is currently in the custody of her father, a convicted wife-killer currently serving a life sentence, who social workers have asserted provides a far more stable and loving enviroment, a happy, loving home in a non-femsex world, for this little girl, than her mother, unfit, like so many ferals have proven to be, to rear children.”

The holo dissolved to a middle-aged woman sitting across from CBS’ Mona Brownyn in one of the mediacorp’s Vargas studios.

“ The way she did my baby,” the woman said, reciting the words without feeling them,“ just makes me so sick, and I hope that bitch gets spiked for what she did to her. She used my Carethia, pretended to be her friend, brainwashed her, and there wasn’t nothing I could do about it; if only her daddy had been alive.”

“ ‘If only her daddy had been alive,’ ” Mona Brownyn then said, the view dissolving again to her standing in front of a holographic mockup of the Flynt County Courthouse, the wind just ever so slightly lifting up her short brown skirt, just for a tease of pink thong panties.

“That,” she said, reading the lines from the holoprompter in front of her, the studio’s AI net not quite succeeding in removing the trapped look from her almond-shaped hazel eyes,” seems to be the common cry of all those who have to mourn the death of little girls and boys so cruelly abused and murdered by their mothers or their non-Canon sexual partners.

Carethia James was a bright, talented young girl, so happy; then along came Felicia Burton. Both those she went through basic training with and the people in this small industrial town who watched this child grow up into a young woman say she met Felicia Burton about a year before she became pregnant. At first, it seemed just a harmless friendship...but people who knew both girls say it became something more sinister:”

Another woman, reciting lines without passion, said:

“I knowed Felicia all her life, but Carethia had started being friends with her. Oh, man, I knew there was something sick going on from the moment I first laid eyes on the two of them together; you could tell from the way Felicia held Cartheia’s hand in hers; Carethia always had her head down, when Felicia was with her, did anything Felicia told her to do, anything.

One day, Carethia came over to my house, with her right eye swoll shut and welts on her legs and her back too. When I asked her what was wrong, she said nothing, but the day before that, I could hear Felicia and Carethia—Felicia lives in the apartment next to mine, her mama’s place—such a nice lady, took too much off of that girl, and I know she’s rolling in her grave right now, seein’ how that witch turned out. Anyway, I heard Felicia and Carethia arguing, just holleringthe day before, and I could swear I heard Carethia screaming, crying, and it sounded like Felicia was hitting her at the same time she was calling her a fat-ass lazy slut and a ‘ho.; Felicia’s got some muscles, muscles a woman ain’t got no bidness having, and she used to work at construction sites a lot, oh, and she sho’ nuff was mean, especially to her ‘friends.’

Yeah, she probably was a bulldyker.”

Another woman, also sounding insincere:

“ I got this spare room in my apartment, right, but I never furnished it or nothing. So, Felicia comes over with Carethia walking behind her; she was wearing this slanky minidress, I mean you could see her ass and her thang through the cloth, while Felicia was wearing a shirt and baggy pants, like what you see a man wearing, and she had this big old bulge inside her crotch, ran right down her leg, an’ it was a dido, all right. I seen pornos, and I know them thangs when I see ‘em.

Anyway, I let them use my spare room, and the whole night, Carethia was just screaming her head off. Can’t say for sure what happened, but when Felicia came out the next morning, she had the sheets I had laid out for my spare room just bundled up in her arms, and she said she was going to get them cleaned. She just ran outta there, dragged Carethia right behind her.”

A man this time:

“Felicia used to hurt them girls, beat the hell outta ‘em, but she sure took care of ‘em real good, gave them everything they wanted. I worked with her one time out at Excelsior in Gibson Valley, and she wore a big old strap inside her pants, used to stroke it all the time; man, it was disgusting.

Used to strut around like a man, pushed them big ass buggies fulla feedstock to her machine with no hep atall, when even some of the guys out there had to have somebody hepin’ ‘em pull the work over to them. Big old gal, too, mo’ muscles than I had; she worked out at the company gym all the time, lifitng the same weights us guys did.

Everybody knowed she was a bulldyker.

As for Carethia, I heard she went both ways; she just needed the right man to get it up in there and make that pussy right. ”

Another man, being interviewed in some sort of office:

“Everybody knew Felicia was a femperv.

About two years ago, the po-lice found her in a hotel room busting the hell outta of a thirteen-year old girl with a strap; po-lice said—you see, my boy, he’s a sergeant in the Gnats, right—anyway, the po-lice said she was fucking that girl in her asshole with that strap, an’ she was screaming her head off—my boy said you could hear her all the way from the parking lot.

Anyway, Felicia still strung out on that girl, keeps sending her roses, birthday cards, and poems; in fact, the last time I went over to her apartment—I’m her lead man, and I was wondering why she was missing all them days—anyway, when I went over to her apartment, she and this other girl were fighting over her.

One time, she beat the hell outta our line supervisor, Torrie MacClendon—he’s a big man, works out every day at the gym—whupped his ass good. No surprise, though, considering how big she was—she had more muscles than some of the men out here; sure had a real feminine-sounding voice, though.”There was a skinny...emaciated...woman standing beside him in the office, and she said, while glancing at him from time to time:

“Yeah, she always wore a strap and had a tube of vasaline in her pants pocket, said she wanted to be ret’ t’go, if she happened to see a girl she liked; she was always looking at my ass...she asked me if I wanted to be her girlfriend, said she’d take care of me real good, buy me pretty clothes, jewelry, even a new car, make sure I always had money in the bank...man, I told her quick I wuhn’t studyin’ that shit.”

Another woman, this one not even looking at the camera:

“She always beat up on Carethia, called her a fuck bitch and all sorts of sorry names like that. And Carethia just kept coming right back and taking it from her.

One time...Carethia used to work in the Shop n’ Stop over on Edward Street, right. Anyway, one time, Felicia came in the store while she was working the cash register, ordered her to take off her shirt and her bra...completely nekkid from the waist up, might as well have been from the waist down too, with dem bootie sho’ts she wore all the time...an’ Felicia started beatin’ on her tits with that big ol’ belt she always wore, telling her, ‘bitch, you better give me some tonight,’ over and over, and she didn’t stop beating on her until Carethia was crying and telling her ‘yes, Mistress,’ as she just got down on her knees and started licking Felicia’s feet.”

Another man, claiming to be Carethia’s boyfriend:

“She wanted a baby real bad, and, she wanted to get married, have a normal, loving relationship with a man, as per Canon, but that damn white bitch just couldn’t stand it, and Carethia was just too weak to tell her no.

I came home one night from work and Felicia had her bent over; Carethia was five months pregant at the time, and that white bitch had her pants pulled down an’ was whuppin’ her ass with one of my belts, calling her a ‘ho and a cheatin’ bitch, ‘cuz she wanted to have my baby and be with me, steada with her. Then, she ordered her to get down on her knees an’ lick her out in front of me, and Cartheia did just that, coochie an’ booty,” he didn’t even cry, but the media never made anything of a man not crying over the loss of someone he allegedly loved,“an’ then Felicia told her, ‘you better get rid of that baby, bitch, or I’ll get rid of it for you,’ before she slapped her face hard, an’ said, ‘you belong to me, bitch, to me, and not to no fuckin’ man.’ ”

The actress playing Carethia’s mother spoke again:

“I begged Carethia to get out of that relationship with Felicia, that it wasn’t right, not Canon, but Carethia, no matter how bad Felicia did her, always said, ‘she loves me, and I love her. ‘ Felicia had her brainwashed, programmed to do anything, and she couldn’t do nothing about it...that bitch killed my baby,” she wept over and over when the script told her to.

“The Flynt County district attorney ,” Mona said, when the camera came back to her,“ intends going for the death penalty, but many here, Terranova Prime Minister Micheal Bauer amongst them, doubt that will happen, given the manner in which liberal-infested judicial systems everywhere in our worlds have coddled female offenders, even those convicted of the most henious crimes.

In the words of Prime Minister Bauer, ‘ she will probably get thirty years in prison, but will only serve five before being let out on parole; that is the way women are treated by a court system so completely in their thrall, and, by a Governor who only pretends to be one of us.

Five years in some air-conditioned country club with soft beds, good food, a chance to study for a college degree and the right to rape other women and make them their sexual slaves with impunity; any one of us, they would not hesitate to murder through the cruelest and most inhumane of punishments their twisted minds could devise.

That is justice, according to them.’

And, that is an opinion with which this reporter heartily agrees. This is Mona Brownwyn, CBS News, in Gibson Valley, on Terranova.”

“That is par for the course for us, I’m ashamed to say,” Hannah Donner said, once the view was turned back to Early Morning Show’s studio. “We strap it on each other, torture and murder each other, then cry about civil rights and complain because good and decent men object to our perversity and try to pass laws which keep us in hand, and we are so arrogant as to think ourselves the equals of men, when even other radfems are forced to concede we aren’t anywhere near their cultural, intellectural, physical, evolutionary or moral peers.”

As Hannah crossed her booted legs on cue, shifting her grey pinstriped miniskirt to show off her panties, Reneé Sofer did her lines:

“There are some who still think men could be capable of beating on women, raping them, making them whores, and prostituting them, torturing them, murdering them, cutting their babies out of their wombs; they’ve managed to brainwash the children in our tradocs and the masses sitting at home into believing these things, which fly in the face of conventional wisdom, common sense, scientific research, everything that says men just aren’t wired up the way we are.”

“Blame the fake liberal media, Reneé,” Julianna Chen said, Harry Osgoode just sitting there between Hannah and her, mute, waiting until the ladies had finished lending creedence to every one of the lies his and Murdoch’s kind told themselves in the name of survival to chip in his two coppers’ worth.

“They,” Julianna said, staring straight at the prompter feeding her her lines,” have had such an incredible control over the hearts and minds of masses made ignorant by MHVid, Mount Baden 021:0000, Montrose Place, Coupling and all those other trashy sitcoms and soap operas, made to believe that the liberal, radfem, sojus, intellectually-honest agenda put forward by all those shows is the way things really are.

I mean, if all you watched were vids of Maria Santidad wearing a leather teddy and playing with herself in front of a nine-year old boy or Kathi Dancer dancing topless, wearing only a pair of tight spandex biker shorts, as she goes down on her knees and licks another woman’s—”

“Turn it off,” Murdoch said, sighing, leaning back against a wall of one of Federal Aerospace Craft Antares’ detention cells, feet curled under him on the bunk, staring down at the Primo Hydro he was letting burn down to the nub, finally taking a drag on it, blowing out smoke.

Todman and Keller had gone over the info the former Californio reporter had taken with him out of the Ranch, decided it was legit and sent it on to the Middies’ Armed Forces Intelligence, who’d then sent it to the widely-scattered members of the Joint Military Command, who had promptly informed their governments and their media.

And, it hadn’t done any more good than the information Jessi Savage had unearthed concerning the true state of affairs on Twice-Born years before.

So, everyone now knew all that footage supposedly of Tasha Gipson, Kishana Winslow, Kishana’s children and various other victims caught in the line of fire was all bullshit.

Another sigh of smoke.

Todman and his brother had even confirmed, through the former Mid Senate President’s sources inside the Ranch, that Murdoch had been the one responsible for switching out the footage of alleged military ops in the Homesteads for actual footage of what had really been going on on TB for the last five, almost six decades; still, he wasn’t to be trusted, not according to either one of them.

He should’ve known better than to expect almost fifty years of pain to go away with an airy wave of the hand; if he’d loved someone that much, only for her to be betrayed and murdered without being able to do a fucking thing about it, he supposed he would feel the same way.

If he could love.

He ‘d lost count of the women whose contracts had been sold to him to be kept broken to the will of the Holy fucking Media Committee; he’d done his job well where they were concerned, even after he had started to doubt everything, never pitying his victims, certainlly never loving them.

Never really loving Damien, in spite of all the self-delusions of men being the only ones capable of love.

Already the spoiled child of Media Committee privilege, as Keller had so bluntly put it, all pumping and sucking off the MedCom Chairman had really ever meant to Murdoch was access, influence, a chance to raise himself above the rest of the nobodies and nothings whose only lives lay in the lines they did.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

He knew he’d betray Damien in a second if it served his purposes, and Damien would do the same to him, the word “bitch” all the rationalization either of them needed to cover up the plain and simple truth that neither man knew what love was to begin with.

Murdoch envied the Mid reporter his grief and pain of loss.

“...shutting you out,” Jami whispered, holding Micki’s hands in hers for everything she was worth, as she sat in the workstation chair, Stevie sitting on the edge of her bed,”pushing you away when all I ever really wanted was for you...f-for m-me...for u-us to b-be....”

“B-baby,” she began again, shaking even worse, sobbing, “I-i can’t live like this anymore, being alone, running away all the damn time, always fighting all these feelings I know are right, simply ‘cause I’m scared of where they’ll lead...I l-love you, Micki, I n-need you, now m-more than....”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:15:08 ZULU

...ever.

Commander Michelle Phillips gently squeezed her wife’s right hand, holding on to it, as Jami sniffled down more tears, swallowing, apologizing for hurting like hell, as she held her uncle’s medal case in her lap.

Draco had stuffed his in a pair of old boxers in his underwear drawer above the rack in his quarters.

Like his niece, or, perhaps, she was more like her uncle than she cared to admit; she shoved hers underneath her rack, as far out of reach and out of sight as she could, though she’d always taken pains to make sure her wife’s were neatly displayed in a case over the bookshelf in her billet.

They would both have more medals to add; the Defence Staff had commed, informing Jami she would be awarded a fourth Bar to her DSC for her actions in recovering that medevac ship over TB early yesterday morning, and a fifth for her part in keeping Kishana, Natasha, and their children away from those miserable Yanker knobguzzlers, and giving them a chance to start over and actually have a life, while her uncle, for his actions here and on Twice-Born, would be posthumously awarded the fourth and fifth Bars to his Saint Micheal’s Cross.

He had a lot of legacy gear rigged up somehow; a magnetic video tape machine and an ancient optical-disk player both sat at the corner of his workstation, cabling snaking out from them to voltage regulators, external speakers and the workstation terminal itself, while on the shelf above, various magnetic and optical media holding all the ancient science fiction and fantasy movies and series—animated and live-action—that he’d collected over the course of over five decades.

Jami sighed, closing the medal case, laying it gingerly on the pillow.

She blamed herself, always did, nothing anyone could say or do that would make one damn bit of difference in that regard.

“It is my fault,” Jami whispered, sob still in her voice. “I should’ve made damn sure that heavy wasn’t in any position to do harm, and, instead, I left it there to launch its boarding action, threatening the very people I was ordered to bring home safe, risking the lives of everyone on that damn orbital, just so I can try and...”

“We were outnumbered, luv,” Micki told her,”we needed every machine we could spare to stop the reinforcements your father brought with him from TB; that was the priority; our Starmarines and those on the orbital could take care of the boarding action. Hell, it was their guns which knocked down most of the shuttles trying to bull their way onto the core to begin with....”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, Unbroken’s second in command repeating what she’d kept telling her wife since Harriet Mangione had informed her of her uncle’s death:

“There’s no way you could’ve known what was going to happen.”

Jami’s eyes drifted in the direction of the workstation, Micki’s eyes following hers.

Scattered all along the workstation were several holocubes, including one holding their wedding holos from thirty years ago—the holo presently projected was of the actual cermony itself, where they’d both exchanged rings—that one, plus the one of his old field recon team, from IW 1—all of them lined up on Unbroken’s telegate stage, ironically enough—and the one with wedding holos of his twin brother and his wife—who Jami had married on the comcon of this ship right after Habitat—at precisely the exact center of the desk, the cabling from the legacy gear secured up and well clear of those three holos with polymer ties and duct tape.

At the left corner of the desk, a holo of his mother, Jami’s grandmother, the last one he had of her, before she’d died of Lindsey’s disease a decade ago, a holo of a much-younger Auntie Angelique looking down on a much-younger Auntie Rebekah cradling a newborn Cousin Elli in her arms to the left of the holo of Draco’s mum, while the final one was of Micki’s aunts and Jami at Unbroken’s comcon, just after Auntie Angelique’s first retirement from the service.

Draco had transferred back to the regular Starmarines well before then, becoming, first Unbroken’s troop sarnt major, then its Starmarine company commander by the time of the Kohoutek Massacre; he’d had various offers and opportunites for promotion over the years, including one as commandant of the Starmarine School, but he’d just never wanted any of them.

Ran in the family.

During the last war, and for the ten years of the Pax Sepulchris, she’d been offered promotion after promotion, only to turn all of them down, because she still didn’t think she’d earned the right to command this ship, let alone anything else; yet, she always admonished Micki whennever she turned down a chance at command—recently of the Albion—blaming herself for supposedly holding her wife back from her true calling.

“You should’ve had a ship of your own years ago,” Jami whispered.

“I’m a damn good second,” Micki said, another old and familiar argument,”and, I don’t think there’s anyone else that comes close to being as good a pliot as me—”

“That’s one of the things I love about you, baby,” Jami said, smiling in spite of herself,”why you should have your own command, you’ve always been so sure of who you are in the worlds.”

“Thing is, luv,” Micki said, finishing her sentence, “ I realized long time ago that I make a better helmsman than I do a skipper; that’s who I am, what I’ve wanted to do since I was old enough to walk, and that is the best way I can serve my Commonwealth, right here where I’m at; you, on the other hand...even back at MTC, everyone knew you had what it took to be a good skipper.”

“I was a messed-up drunk,” Jami said, shaking her head. “I’m still messed up; by all rights, I shouldn’t be in command of a fucking thing...I got my own uncle...”

She sighed, staring down at her lap, Micki giving her another gentle squeeze of her hand.

Whispering the words she’d said over and over ever since sodding Kohoutek.

Words she would keep repeating, for as long as it took for Jami to realize she was not to blame.

The young woman, an officer cadet according to the rank insignia on her beret, paused a second, adding,”Commander, Avenging Angel, please inform Sarnt Major Selkirk that we’re all very sorry for his loss.”

“Thank you, Cadet,” whispered Carson Selkirk, his wife Annesha Griffin gently squeezing his left hand, as he tried to keep his composure.

He’d just got back to the house, when Jami had commed, told him his only true blood brother was dead, killed by the same motherfucker who’d taken their sister from them; she blamed herself, for going after the ships Brad had brought with him, instead of hammering Oriskany and its Governor to scrap, so he wouldn’t have been able to order a boarding action.

But, as usual, the blame lay with someone else.

In this case, Carson himself.

He would regret asking his old Six for that favor to his dying day.

Neesha gently squeezed his again, the Avalon frigate already through the Dorsal Cylinder’s ship-handling airlock(shiplock), sailing tail-end first past Unbroken and her squadron, Carson barely able to see all the LogCorps techs swarming all over Unbroken’s battered, beaten, burned fuselage, his face wet and hot with his own tears, and he didn’t give a damn who noticed.

Difference between him and his twin brother, he’d always kept it in, until it got to the point where he couldn’t, and he either got drunk and violent, or somehow managed to stay sober and got really violent later on.

Then, he’d lock himself down inside again.

Carson sighed, shaking his head; he never found that someone special, in spite of all his meddling in that direction for others; this would hurt him and Jami both like a son of a bitch, but at least she had Micki, and he had Neesha, and if it weren’t for the women in their lives, they both could’ve just as easily have ended up like Drac, all alone, in spite of all the people who cared about him.

“Smokes monkeybone,” he said out loud.

“Docking now,” the Avalon frig’s 2ic said in his head, Avenging Angel gently nudging herself into her assigned docking bay with a touch from the starboard RCS thruster banks,”extending umbilicals,” a pair of soft clanks! reverberated through the comcon,”locks sealed. We are locked and docked.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 10:37:13 ZULU

“I’m damn sick and tired of burying my friends,” Jay Todman said softly, not looking at his brother as he fussed with his FedArmy black and green dress uniform, the two men standing on Antares’ telegate stage, waiting to be gated aboard.

All Coloniel John Keller could say in reply to that was a muted ”I know.”

“I know,” his older brother repeated.

“The Avalons are through gating their passengers aboard Unbroken, Coloniel,” the young woman working the gate’s controls said, the Mid reporter fussing with the replicas of the Senate seal on the epaulets, where his coloniel’s eagles should have been...cloisonné silver Ursa Minor on black, the Senate’s motto VOX POPULI scrolled along the bottom in silver, the words SEAL OF THE SENATE OF THE FEDERATION OF MIDNIGHT SUN a gold—gold, because for twenty of the worst years in human history, he had unwillingly presided over the Senate—half circle along the top, tacky goddamn thing it was too, should have never stood for Titan to begin with, should’ve declined his people’s nomination then and there.

But...it was a great honor.

Some great honor, the honor of leading people to their deaths in the midst of goddamn slaughter everywhere, that was one honor he could’ve just as easily done without.

“We’ve established focus, sirs,” the young flight engineer said. “You may step through at any time.”

Nodding his head, Jay stepped forward, through the spacetime rift.

Murdoch had been on the level, but it hadn’t done anyone any more good than it would’ve if he had been lying through his fucking teeth again; another friend of his was gone, his people, the Commonwealth, the rest of the JMC, were at war with the Federation, the Cosmos, the Japanese, the Swiss, and the Donvanians moving to reinforce the Avalons still cleaning up the mess on Twice-Born, freeing the other forces sent there to join the fighting on Terranova.

More people dying by the millions; Phenix City and Buena Vista were finally in allied hands after over two hours of heavy fighting, with Cusseta and Muscogee being brutally contested, while the Yanker gov had run offworld to Espérance, deep in the Terranovan Archipelago, as New Athens and Atlanta Three both burned.

“Mister President,” Carson’s voice said, a ragged husk of its former self, as he stood there, in No,1 dress whites, a sergeant major’s twin bronze suns on the collar.

“I’m sorry,” Jay whispered.

“Yeah,” Carson replied, tears running down his cheeks.

“Me too,” he said, shaking his head.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 11:00:27 ZULU

She could’ve had the auto-repair system’s teks and nanos do this.

It wouldn’t be the same, not to Senior Lieutenant Stephani Grace Aguinaldo, third in command of the Commonwealth Star Force’s most-decorated machine; hovering over the starboard bell, palette and her narrowest brush in hand, Unbroken’s weapons engineering officer filled in the outline of the red horse racing wild and free past the silver and gold Starcraft and Sunburst of the service, red instant-drying , molecular-bonding paint already melding with the fuselage’s outer TDU composite shell, dry to the touch.

Once finished with that, she moved forward, to the weapons hull, to the kill board stretching from where it merged with the main hull to just behind where the ship’s name and registry number had already been painted in space-cadet blue; she added several more Yanker, Casshole, Ozzie, Birdbrain, and A Fuck flags to the kill board, one big flag for each battleship/ heavy cruiser(cause the Yanker Starfleet was not a military organization, so it was often claimed), a quarter-sized flag for each frigate/destroyer/cruiser, painted in a 2×2 array, twelve tiny flags, in a 4×3 grid for starfighters/hyperspace fighters.

From there, the nose art.

Against the background of space-cadet blue, outline broken up by the turrets, and the iris-valve hatches covering the Raptor launch rails, was Saint Micheal himself, in all his glory, rendered in a darker shade of the cool medium grey of the ship’s primary color, wings outstretched, sword and shield held high, Terranovan Satan’s helper(an ungodly huge venomous snake with vestigal bat-like wings)trampled underfoot, with the ship’s motto Liberum Sempiternum(instead of the traditional Quis’ ut Deus)scrolled along the bottom.

Stevie touched up the grey, adding gold highlights and outlines to the wings, then more gold to touch up the halo above his head, before she took a peek round the nose, watching Marisa repaint the red horse rampant along the port bell, while Harriet Mangione—a lieutenant now, and how she regretted that—worked on the kill board on the port side, and Harriet’s wife, Hadley Purvis, finished the lettering of the ship’s name and registry number on the port weapons hull.

Stevie nodded her head as she watched Marisa and the others work, before returning to the task at hand.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 11:19:20 ZULU

“Yours,” Gehard Kaufmann’s holo said softly,”is a history of blood, betrayal and terror. ”

“And, you are unwilling to change,” he said, the Swiss Federal Council President sighing.”You insist on endangering decent men and women, you leave those decent men and women no choice but to fight you for their very lives...”

He trailed off, tears running down his face, his voice reduced to a husk of itself:

“’He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war; / But ere the crown he looks for live in peace, /Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons/ Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,/Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace/To scarlet indignation, and bedew/ Her pasters’ grass with faithful English blood.’ ”

Another pause, a swallow, and he finished what he had to say:

“You leave us no alternative; as of one minute after midnight, International Atomic Time, this date, all diplomatic relations between the Swiss Federal Union, the Republican Union of Terranova and the other member states of the United Federation of Sovereign Star Nations are irrevocably severed. We have closed our embassies, recalled our diplomats, and we will render all aid and support to our allies, as is our obligation under the 2214 General Orders Authorizing Joint Military Command.

Any hope of peaceful coexistence with you has, time and again, been rendered impossible by you; there is nothing between us now but war to the death of one or the other of us.

Gött in Himmel, forgive us all.”

“Those,” the BBC’s Irma DeLong said, her voice barely under control,”were strong words on the part of the Swiss Federal Council President, strong words echoing all our sentiments towards the hoodlums and black’earts calling themselves the lawfully-constituted government of the Rude Union of Backstabbers, and their criminal co-conspirators on the Excremental Council of the United Fecal Matter of Slobbering Space Nazis.”

Rosalind Smith, sitting on the sofa in Carson and Neesha’s living room, sipping coffee, watched this ‘cast, not knowing what to feel; everything that had happened so far had left her in total shock.

“As you know,” DeLong added, swallowing,”President Kaufmann’s was the last of the formal declarations of war issued by the members of the Joint Military Command against the Yankers and the Federation; four hours ago, Commonwealth Secretary-General Dame Lilith Angelique Gault issued the following:”

The holo dissolved to a worn, haggard Angelique Gault—nothing at all like the Leeleth of SRO—standing on the shambles of the Commonwealth flagship’s command and control center, staring hard into the cams, as she said:

“These past eight days have borne witness to arrogant, brutal, criminal acts of umitigated, cold-blooded murder and mayhem against Commonwealth citizens, against civilians, against innocent bystanders, out of the spite and the fear of one man, one man, and other determined, entirely too eager, men hellbent upon helping him accomplish what they all want, even if it means their utter annhilation; as long as they kill those who they fear, they are willing to die, he is willing to die.

Out of fear and selfishness, this minority have murdered their own citizens, taken from them the one thing they have no right to take, and have thus lost all legitimacy.

They are criminals, hostis humani generis, and any community of responsible, decent people have no alternative but to treat them as such.

Therefore, as of 05:31:00 Zulu Time, this date we, the free and sovereign people of the Solarian Commonwealth of Nation are, now and forever, at war with the outlaw regime calling itself the Republican Union of Terranova and with the other organized-crime syndicates comprising the United Federation of Sovereign Star Nations.

You have pledged yourselves to the utter annhilation of all of us, so must we now pledge ourselves to your utter annhilation, you have left us no other way out.

God help the lot of you.

By my hand, this sixteenth day of November, in the year of the Common Era two thousand, two hundred seventy-six,

“Parliament,” DeLong said, as the view dissolved back to the BBC studios in Glastonbury, on Earth,”wasted little time in unanimously confirming our Secretary General’s formal declaration of war; even now, additional units of our Commonwealth’s Armed Forces, newly-activated, are en route to Terranova to reinforce the JMC units already present. They are expected to arrive within the hour to take part in the brutal fighting going on in the skies and on the surface of that planet, Commonwealth and allied ground forces having landed on Terranova for only the second time in sixty years; though the Federation, during the last war, succeeded, briefly, in landing ground troops on Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Earth itself, the Joint Military Command did not launch a ground invasion of the Yanker homeworld; the war ended with the bloody battle of Habitat before things could progress that far.”

Another pause, the Commonwealth’s oldest citizen adding:

“Right now the death toll stands at ten and a half million Commonwealth and allied dead throughout the human worlds, with the heaviest fighting being on Terranova, Viejo Mundo, Cascadia and the western continent of Sakura,where forces loyal to the shogunate and forces loyal to the Japanese imperial government are locked in especially bitter combat; we have no information, at this time, as to the total number of civilian dead, but...it will be high, too high, that I do know for certain.”

“Always is,” her bubba, staring through the wall, as he sat on a recliner in the opposite corner of the room, whispered over his cup of coffee.

“Yeah,” Rosalind said softly.

They were both in a daze, things had happened too fast, for Rosalind, especially.

Just twenty-four hours ago, she’d been sitting in her office, going through accident and incident reports, while listening to A.J. Smith bitching about not getting his unemployment for being out of work last week, no idea of the hell that was about to break loose.

At least Kiki, her lover and her children were all right, more or less; Lexie would get her chance to work on one of the Rovers, in spite of old Gotchanow and everything he and his could do, the Republic of Venus’ Ministry of Labor was working on getting Kiki and Tasha both jobs, while NaTanya, Kiki’s youngest, had enlisted in the Commonwealth Forces.

Rosalind sighed; she had to find a job now, as well as a place to stay, what had passed for her life had been wrenched from her in less than a day, and they’d left her with nothing, except for her cat.

Perhaps that was just as well, there had been nothing for her on Terranova, not for the longest time, not since she’d fucked up and helped them kill Abby, she’d only been surviving, hiding, trying not to do anything which would bring them down on her the way she’d brought them down upon her best friend, afraid to even show a glimpse of who she really was.

And, they’d come down upon her anyway, simply because she was a woman, and they could, killing herself inside and going into survival mode had only helped them in their work.

Another sigh.

She would find her a job, a place to stay...and, maybe, a second chance as well.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 12:22:13 ZULU

Fighting in urban areas sucked, even in the twenty-third century.

Fire rained down on them from the Walmart Megacenter spanning both sides and the median island of Victory Drive—Terranova 27 from Buena Vista to the main gate of Fort Colin Powell—Coloniel Broca shouting “One through Three Squadrons, take the left flank, Six through Eight Squadrons, the right, Four, Nine and Ten Squadrons, secure the median island; let’s do it!”in Rachel’s head, as her Lynx veered sharply to the left, its turbine screaming, all its guns—the 130 and co-axial 50s in the remote main turret, the quad 50s on the sponsons, the quad 50s in the dorsal and ventral troop bay turrets, and the armament of the mech infantry section hunkered down in the troop bay—all cutting loose at the same time, the part of the Walmart facing Victory Drive’s ten northbound lanes going up with a roar of light and a cloud of dust, leaving only the two four-story wings on either side of the two-klick wide parking lot, the hydro station/auto service center/c-store/Chik n’ Waffle at its precise center and every parked car, intact or otherwise, for her people to worry about.

As well as all those enemy troops pouring out of the four floors the Hard n’ Fast Fifty-First just got through demolishing like a colony of Utopian armorbugs pouring out of a knocked-over mound, the bell going off, and the troop bay doors swinging open underneath Rachel and her command section, before she knew it, her VT harness propelling her into all those sons of bitches coming down on her, hellbent on her destruction.

Rachel reflexively banged away at them with her HMD13, Sage right beside her, tearing into them with her SPAM130, as they flew well ahead of the protection of the Lynx’s armor and MHD shielding, her own personal shielding already every color of the rainbow, as a veritable hailstorm of gras struck it dead on, everything round her a roar of light, explosions, screaming, sobbing, shouted orders on all sides.

One of them being for “Four Squadron,take care of those bastards in the middle of the lot!” from Major Jacoby, whose Ten Squadron was taking heavy fire from the nest of 37s, 40s, 50s, 57s, 75s, 90s, 105s,130s, 152s and at least two 175s the enemy had set up inside that center structure, field guns whose MHD shielding also radiated every color of the spectrum as they vectored a firestorm of bomb-pumped graser warheads into the rest of the lot.

“Fire in the hole!” Color Sergeant Andra Murad’s voice shouted over squadron tacnet, 3/4’s section corporal driving 130s into the center structure, sweeping it with her SPAM130, Rachel emptying her magazine into what was left, both 1/4 Squadron’s gunners on either side of her doing the same, Trooper Nancy MacClannahan pumping BPG from her HMD13 into the blazing ruin from which no enemy soldier should have emerged, but did anyway, by the hundreds, all of them blazing away with tribarrels, heavy massdrivers and 130mm MPARs, as they charged hellbent for 4 Squadron.

Rachel reloaded her HMD, and returned the enemy’s fire in a single motion.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew
Her pasters’ grass with faithful English blood.”
—William Shakespeare, Richard II, III.iii

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 13:00:01 ZULU

“...for the first time,” TMS’ Suzann Lawler said, like a good little girlie,”Homesteaders are now able to communicate with the outside world, something made possible through the installation of a modern communications and artificial-intelligence network throughout the continent of New Patagonia by soldiers of the Terranovan Republican Starfleet’s 5th Combat Communications Group, based at Terranovan Republican Starfleet Headquarters in Curtis LeMay; before this, the offworlders and radfems who controlled the Homesteads forced their subjects to communicate through a system which, to quote Commander Vernon ‘Skeeter’ Warren, commanding the 5th Mob, ‘weren’t no better than tin cans on a string.’

This is, of course, to be expected. As many studies have shown beyond the shadow of a doubt, we ferals are afraid of technology; I have difficulty trying to toast bread without burning the house down.”

“That’s right, Suzann,” Francis Mulloy, seated next to her at the anchor desk, said, chuckling, before moving on to the next story:

“Donna McIntyre, former Chief Administrator of the Cahill Point Colony and absolute tyrant over all the Homesteads, was captured by Terranovan forces early this morning, during a raid on a house in LeGrange Three suspected of being part of the femsex-slave network extending throughout all of human space.”

In the background was that fat cunt, Donna McIntyre, wearing a studded leather bodysuit, grabbing the hair of a naked little blond girlie with her hands bound behind her back, bending her over and fuswhipping that ass bloody and raw, Mulloy continuing:

“This footage was taken by the lead elements of the Ranger Light Infantry Battalion which stormed the house, which was, in fact, being used to finish the conversion of women and girls abducted and lured from their homes and families into willing femsexual slaves—broken completely of every decent, honest value their fathers tried to teach them—who are then taken offworld and sold in secret auctions to women throughout human space.”

The footage now dissolved to that fat bitch—stripped, whipped, collared, chained and gagged—being dragged out of the house on a leash by Terranovan troops.

Once again resurrected from the dead, Guy Thomas Zellner, now and forever Governor of the Union, watched this with one hand on himself, as he sat on the sofa in the penthouse suite of his backup Capitol on Espérance.

As one of the Rangers put his boot to that bitch’s ass to get her in the back of a UG-66 Commanche gun jeep, Mulloy concluded,”Terranova Attorney General Thrubert C. Baker announced that McIntyre will amongst the first ferals tried by the newly-formed Special Femsex Crimes Tribunal, which will formally convene in the student union of the former Terranova College and Republican Union University at 15:00:00 Zulu today. The tribunal, headed by Terranova Prime Minister Micheal Bauer, consists of three Sheriffs, including Robert G. Owens, recently reinstated as Sheriff of Baldwin County, three outside experts in the field of evolutionary gyneopsychology, Coloniel Horace Duane Rumph, head of the TSID’s Special Victims Unit and one of the Terranovan government’s foremost experts on ferals, Imperial Kludd Thomas J. Comfort of the Chrisdent Klavern of Terranova, and, of course, Prime Minister Bauer himself. Attorney General Baker further announced that those brought before the tribunal will not be given the constitutional safeguards normally accorded criminal defendants, stating:”

Thurbert Baker’s holo, speaking from an exact dupe of the Press Room in the backup Capitol, said:

“These are not normal times. The security of our Union is threatened as never before by a conspiracy of radfems, sojus soybois, interstellarists, corpo-religious fanatics, Communist National Socialist agitators, and liberal Jew elites operating from within and without, seeking nothing less than the destruction of our way of life and its replacement with a socialist fascistic matriarchy unrivalled even by that of Leni Riefenstahl’s Germany of the mid-twentieth century, or, even that of Alexandra Cortez’s United States of America in the late twenty-first.

Like these earlier Nazis, these latter-day disciples of fascism, socialism, democracy, and femsexual deviancy are willing to take absolute power by any means necessary; those means include, but are not limited to, the subversion of our economy, the ruination of our greatest corporations through scandals they themselves create, through the undermining of our election process, through attacks against their own ships, through the mass murder of a quarter-billion civilians, through their own subhuman kind, masquerading as men so that men may be blamed for their crimes.

Since they pose such a grave threat to the security of our Union, it is under the Union Security Act, drafted by men of foresight against those who would use our laws and covenants against us, that these femnazis shall be tried; they will not be allowed to use the laws decent men have drafted for the governance of decent men as a shield behind which they can hide from the justice they deserve.

Under the Union Security Act, and before this tribunal, they will not be able escape judgement or final punishment; this will be the end of them; this I promise you.

Thank you, and may Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh continue to bless His Sons and His Republican Union of Terranova.”

She trailed off, Carson Selkirk looking inside the casket holding the ugly mess which had once been his twin brother, nodding his head once as he gingerly lowered the lid over him and snapped it shut.

“I’m sorry, Sarnt Major,” Hadley added.

“You,” Carson said slowly, tears catching in his throat,”and Jami both should feel sorry for that bonesmoking North Coast son of a bitch; it’s a dead cert he doesn’t feel sorry for taking another of my family from me.”

“No,” Hadley said simply, “I don’t think he does at that.”

“Have you seen Jami yet?” she asked.

Carson shook his head, still staring at his twin brother’s dull-black casket.

“Not by design,” he whispered, sniffling, a horrid sound indeed in the cold, ghastly silence of the ship’s morgue. “Neesha went to his quarters to see her, help her...”

“She has one uncle to bury, Doc, ” Carson observed blackly in reply. “She’ll have a hell of a lot more close to her to bury entirely too soon enough; what’s grieving over one more before his time—over something she can’t change—going to do except drain of her of the strength she needs for the fight ahead?”

“The strength,” he whispered,”she needs to help save all of us.”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 13:28:50 ZULU

Kissing her wife’s blonde hair, brushing strands of it away from her face, Senior Captain Jameison Lanier let Micki sleep; God knows she needed it, she’d been up for over thirty-three hours straight, ever since they’d left the AD Leonis Test Range for Twice-Born, through the fighting there, the interlude between that and the orders which had brought them to Terranova, the fight there and inside the MaxMons corridor.

Holding Jami’s hand, and telling her she wasn’t to blame for her uncle’s death, when she was.

Sighing, she got up from the rack, about to walk out of Micki’s quarters, when she saw that her workstation was a mess again, after she’d just got through straightening it up, books, hardcopies and various bric a brac all over the place, Jami sighing again as she put everything back the way it was supposed to be, taking a last look at her heart and soul as she slept, smiling, nodding her head, before turning and walking out of her quarters and down the spinhab main corridor toward her uncle’s.

Her late uncle’s...her late uncle’s, she didn’t know why it was so hard to keep reminding herself of that, his funeral was tomorrow morning at sunrise at the cemetery in Craggy Face, on the northwest side of Maxwell Montes, full military honors, they were going to gate him downside to the chapel at Commonwealth Forces Headquarters in another couple of hours, Unbroken’s surviving Starmarines accompanying the casket, standing guard over it, until the time came to bury him.

Another sigh, heavy with the tears she tried to hold in, the commander of the Unbroken taking a deep breath, as she came to the door of Draco’s quarters, the door sliding open for her; her auntie was carrying on with the task of packing his things into boxes, also to be gated downside, for storage in one of the vaults in the Headquarters reservation.

If anything, he kept his quarters neater than she kept hers, something you’d never think a miserable fucking drunk like him would...

She swallowed again, relenting; she shouldn’t have been so hard on him about that, he’d at least had the decency to keep it offship, to somewhat take responsibility for what he couldn’t stop doing to himself.

“...tuned his sorry black ass up good,” Annesha Griffin, her uncle Carson’s wife, said, chuckling in spite of her tears,” I mean, he beat the brakeshoes off that bastard, put him down in the mud and still whaling away...”

“That,” Colonel John Keller, commanding the Middie destroyer Antares, said, laughing as well, some of his friend’s comic books in his hand,”I would’ve paid good money to see.”

Auntie Neesha shook her head, sighing.

“Jeff was a coward motherfucker,” she remarked,”always had been, only ones he could hurt were those who couldn’t fight him back, who he—or his good friend Guy Zellner—could slap down every time they tried to tell him they weren’t to blame for him being a drunkard, a geek monster and an all-around worthless excuse for a man, who wouldn’t have gotten to where he was in a society where his kind weren’t in power, where he couldn’t get his way simply by sucking off the man upstairs.”

“Been with Carson too long,” she remarked, looking up into her niece’s dark eyes, replying to what Jami was about to say.

“Good thing,” she added,”all in all.”

Jami nodded, kneeling down to help the other two finish their packing.

“Just got through putting Micki to bed,” she said.

“Someone,” Auntie Neesha remarked,”needs to put you to bed as well, baby; how long have you been up?”

“I’m good, Auntie Neesha,” Jami said, gingerly picking up all Drac’s Cowboy Bebopmanga, all of them still in their dust jackets; he took care of these, made damn sure they stayed in mint condition, and she couldn’t blame him, even if these weren’t the originials, they were still worth...

She counted them again, and a third time, more carefully this time, Auntie Neesha asking,”what’s wrong?”

“There are only twenty-five of them,” Jami replied.

“There’s supposed to be twenty-six all together,” she added, getting up, looking round his quarters, holding the other twenty-five issues carefully in her hands,”the originial Cowboy Bebop had twenty-six sessions—issues, the last two completing the series.”

That wasn’t like him at all; the last Bebop lay open on his nightstand, the little diorama he’d made of Vash the Stampede stomping on her father’s Dirk Jameison action figure resting on the spine along with a mag for a PDMD 13, both serving to keep the book open and flat on the table.

He always, very carefully, put them back up once he was through reading—or, in his case, rereading-them.

He’d deliberately left it open, and near the end of the series’ last chapter, right where Faye confronted Spike, just before the final showdown with Vicious ending in both their deaths; on the left-hand page, square on the panels of Spike telling Faye that all his life he’d seen the future through his glass eye and the past through the good one, was an honest to God hand-written note.

“Hold these,” she said, handing the other twenty-five books to John, picking up the note, removing the diorama and the magazine, carefully closing the book, replacing it in its dust cover and handing it to John to put with the others.

She unfolded the note; he had neat handwriting, something of a rarity in this day and age.

It isn’t your fault. I seriously doubt you believe that right now, Jami, you’re probably thinking of how you failed me, what you should’ve done differently, but...we are both soldiers for our Commonwealth, we both know what that means every morning we get up, and get dressed to go to work. Jami, I know...I know....I might not live to see the end of the day...”

She looked away, swallowed hard, wiped the tears from her face, and continued reading:

“That’s fine; as Micki reminded me not too long ago, I took the Commonwealth’s solari, so where you point, I obey; between the stars and far away.

My will and other legal documents are in the dead vaults underneath Commonwealth Forces HQ; you and Carson are the joint executors of what is laughingly called my estate; other than that...other than that, Jami, nothing to say except...I love you, and it has been one hell of an honor to call you my Skipper.

Remember that in the days to come, kay, girlie?

Drac”

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 14:16:00 ZULU

“...they are glad we came,” Micheal Bauer’s holoimage said,”they are happy they are free now, that the radfem, sojus offworld troublmakers, who attempted to impose upon them a fascistic, matriarchial order, have been driven to earth by our f—”

A whistle, a teeth-rattling BOOOOOMMMM! and a dimming of lights turned the new Prime Minister’s holo into a wash of white noise, which Field Marshal John Brian Mulroney IV, commander of the Terranovan Sovereign Rifle Association, ordered a rifleman first class to shut off, as he turned his attention back to the holographic map of Fort Colin Powell, the TSRA’s headquarters for over a century and a half, now under assault from every direction, the 75th, 82d, 101st and 173d Ranger Light Infantry Regiments, plus the bulk of the Third, Fourth and Eighth Shock Armies fighting off Commie, Middie and Avalon troops pouring in from everywhere, the Commies’ Hard n’ Fast Fifty-First spearheading the assault through the main gate, driving back the reservists hastily formed to take the place of the Third Shock Army that had been slaightered, and eternally damned almost a week ago, the Rangers, in their Commanche gun jeeps, attempting to harass them from the flanks.

“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” he said to his top bone, as he unscrewed the cap off the bottle of Full Sail Amber Waves, taking a swallow of beer, as he continued watching the map.

DirtComs had their artillery set up all along the Benning Hills golf course, just three klicks away from the Headquarters complex at the heart of the post, 130s, 152s and 203s slamming into the compound’s MHD shielding, some punching through, taking out whole wings at a time, toppling the flagstaffs in the front courtyards, the flags flying from them ablaze as they fell down onto the ground, the Third Shock Army’s own mechanized artillery platforms struggling to get into position, and hit those Commie bulldykers back where it hurt the most, the Commies’ Lynx panzers—ugly, goddamn things they were—driving 50s and 130s right into them, forcing them to fire, as they retreated along Victory Drive and 8th Armored Division Road, their mech infantry taking on the Rangers along their flanks and the Third’s own mechanized inf—

Motherfuck, that was close!

Beer sloshed all over the sleeve of his Class A dress uniform, the Field Marshal of the Terranovan Sovereign Rifle Association, decorated hero of two wars, sixth generation ofMulroney men to serve their Union, tightly squeezing his legs shut the instant he felt his bladder letting go; he was not scared, goddamnit, no matter how badly his hands were shaking, he was not scared, he was a man, for Christ’s sake, the scion of one of the Union’s first families, his ancestor, the first John Brian Mulroney, had helped drive those Commie dyke bitches from his world sixty years ago, kept them f—

Goddamn motherfuckers, couldn’t they fucking hold off a division of DirtCom bulldykers?!

Of course they couldn’t, too goddamn many bitches in drag—that traitorous North Coast hillbilly fucking slut Guy Zellner included—infiltrating the military, the government, even the Security Council itself.

That drunkard Jeff Selkirk was just another weak-ass bitch, one of the worst of the damn lot, that was the reason his little piece of black ass had only been let off after killing her own mama, nine and a half months’ fucking pregnant with another goddamn howler, because he was her fucking piece of black ass, whole goddamn family nothing but bitches in fucking drag.

They’d weakened the military, lowered the training standards so that sluts could make it through and slurp their goddamn way up the ranks, slashed the budget, drove the best of them out of the service in droves, turned them into policemen, for God’s sake, with their hands tied so tight behind their backs, they weren’t even allowed to go on patrol with mags in their w—

G.H. Christ!

Some of the ceiling came down with that last round of bomb-pumped gras to come in sizzling, the holographic map showing Commie grey sweeping over Sand Hill now, outflanking the 1st Cavalry and 11th Armored Divisions, this fucking close to linking up with Avalon indigo on their left flank; goddamn, both golf courses were in their hands now, bitches didn’t fucking know how to play golf, especially not against the big boys, no matter how many of ‘em the radfems controlling the PGA tried to force into the men’s circuit, no matter how goddamn many times the bitches had to out and out fucking cheat, so their girlies could win.

He pounded the rest of the beer, hollering for his top bone to get him another bottle, hell, make it two or three; hewasn’t scared, only one of them peed her panties at the prospect of combat, bitches were afraid of everything, because they couldn’t understand a fucking thing, all instinct with them, nothing but a goddamn bunch of animals, ev—

Too fuckin’ close!

Snatching another bottle of Amber Waves from his top bone’s grubby paws, the commander of the Terranovan Sovereign Rifle Association barked,”where the fuck are those goddamn Ozzie motherfuckers. Thirteenth Army was supposed to have been here an hour ago!”

“Midnight Sun 14th Army’s got ‘em on the run, Field Marshal,”someone replied,”driving them from their positions at Manchester, moving them southeast, towards Talbotton; Union Security Council‘s pulled the remaining Federation forces formerly deployed on Twice-Born back to Atlanta Three and New Athens!”

“Stupid motherfuckers!” Mulroney snapped, pounding this bottle down his throat as well, trying not to breathe so hard, snapping, “48th Mechanized Infantry Division, reinforce the First Cav and the 11th Armored, concentrate on their left flank, stop ‘em from linking up with those Avalon bitches at all costs; 7th Mechanized Infantry Division, 119th Armored Cav, hit ‘em hard along their center, 2d and 8th Mechanized Infantry Divisions, take their right flank! 25th Shock Army, move up from your positions at Brunswick, and advance on Cusseta, ASAP! All available units of the First and Ninth Shock Armies, fall back to Colin Powell, I say again, fall b—”

Goddamnit!

He was not afraid, he could not be afraid, he was a man, sixth generation of Mulroney men to serve their Union, he simply could not be afraid.

He simply could not be afraid.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 14:28:19 ZULU

Captain Rachel Kelley was too scared to move.

The thirty-five year old sabre squadron commander, already a veteran of one war, kept going anyway, her mechanized infantry sabre squadron’s ten sections right behind her, all guns blazing, their FV.5250 Lynx merkavas heavily engaged against Yanker AV-118 Seminole and AV-118D Seminole Longbow merkavas, while Yanker mech infantry descended upon them in wave after wave, Ranger Light Infantry units harassing them from their gun jeeps, driving 50 millimeter bomb-pumped gras into the ranks of grey.

Lance Corporal Sage McWhorter’s SPAM130 tearing two of them apart in quick succession, as more 130s whistled and detonated over Rachel’s head, the voice of 3/4 Squadron’s Color Sergeant Andra Murad, shouting “fire in the hole!” as gun jeeps and Seminoles all exploded in showers of sparks and shrapnel through which the women of 4 Sabre Squadron of the 51st Utopia Planitia Volunteer Mechanized Regiment—aka the Hard n’ Fast Fifty-First—flew without a second thought, falling upon more enemy soldiers firing, as they drove themselves forward, the MHD shielding of Rachel’s medium-grey No.3 Powered Combat Dress glowing blue, indigo, violet, black in way too many spots, 13s, 50s, and 130s still slamming into it, smashing through it, tearing through her suit and her body without her paying the slightest attention.

This wasn’t the time for it, for anything except for fighting and moving forward, Rachel replacing the magazine in her HMD13 when it ejected itself spent and white hot onto the manicured greens of the golf course which was the current battlefield, 4 Squadron’s commander doing this before she even thought to reload, driving BPG through her enemies’ MHD shielding, some having just enough energy left over to spray what remained over the surface of the field of magnetically-contained plasma continuing to provide her a measure of protection, as the vectored microjets of her VT harness kept pushing her forward at a constant velocity of thirty-six meters per second(roughly 130 kph).

Until 130s streaked in to slam into her shielding and shred the ranks of Commonwealth grey, sending her spinning ass over tea kettle; more mechies, lots of them, judging from the firestorm of BPG tearing through the line, killing her people, every damn one of the sumbitches booming,“gonnagitsumpus-saygonnagitsumpus-saygonnagitsumpus-saygonnagitsum pus-saygonnagitsumpus-saygonnagitsumpus-say,”from their Seminoles’ and suits’ external speakers.

Getting her tumble under control, she could see them, five hundred meters downrange and closing fast, their VT harnesses moving them along just fine, as they skimmed the golf course, banging away with their heavy massdrivers, anti-materiel massdrivers, and MPARs.

She emptied one, two, three, maybe four mags’ worth into the line of advancing enemy mechies, driving enough bomb-pumped gras through the black spots she made in their shields to blow up dozens of them at a time, leaving hundreds, maybe even thousands more to continue coming for her and and her people.

Sage’s incoherent screaming over squadron tacnet followed blue-hot fire sweeping across the Yanker ranks, taking down still more enemy mechs, with still more hovering in lockstep right behind them, bringing their arsenals to bear on the Commonwealth Forces mechies trying to keep themselves alive.

Andra and her section vectored fusillade after fusillade of 13s and 155s right into the enemy, more of them going up or falling down, more still coming, still firing, still taking the young lives under Rachel’s command; Jesus God, Andra herself wasn’t but eighteen, just passed out of training, so it seemed, both her parents killed in action, one on the ground at Avalon, the other during the war-ending bloodbath historians tamely called the Battle of Habitat; Rachel’s sole surviving parent commanded STANSTARFOR 37 and the starfighter carrier Hermes, currently hip-deep in enemy machines over Viejo Mundo, no guarantee she’d ever see her, or her wife and children again.

Another dozen or so mechies sprayed themselves all over the field, Rachel replacing another mag—she must have, there was one falling slowly away from her weapon like a dying ember of a supernova—continuing to move forward, her HMD13 superheating, making only the most shallow of impressions on the nerves of her fingers and palm, as it burned through her gauntlets, continuing to fire on its own, her MHD shielding almost completely black now, someone sounding an awful lot like her ordering her squadron to advance, for Christ’s sake, advance!

And, here she was, too paralyzed with fear to even think of going forward.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 15:00:00 ZULU

“She gave me alcohol,” Jessie Lynch’s nasty little blond ass said, kneeling at the feet of the full tribunal, her thong hiked all the way up the crack of her taint, tight leather hoochie shorts and even tighter belly shirt hiding not a goddamn thing from the holocams showing her at every angle,”drugs, pretending to be the big sister I never had, acting like she was my friend...it was my first time away from home, away from the strong male influences that kept my innate feral drives in check...without my daddy and my older brothers to make me do right, I....I gave in, letting myself be seduced by other women, letting myself become addicted to alcohol and drugs, to the point where I would do anything just for another hit...I would go through the four, five thousand dollars my daddy gave me every week in a day’s binge of Kentucky and redbud—”

“That,” Thurbert Baker, circling Lynch, leering down at her titties as he interrogated her,”is a lot of alcohol and drugs, Miss Lynch.”

“Yes, sir, ” little Jessi replied, not daring to look up at the Attorney-General of the Union,”I understand why you would think that, sir, why any man would. With respect, sir, you have no idea how we females are, how easy it is for us to become addicted to drugs and alcohol, how much more prone we are to that...I would beg Christina for more, and, at first, she let me have it, until I owed so much money there was no way I could possibly pay her, even with the little money I was getting waiting tables, an’ suckin’ cocks at the Chik n’ Waffle.

So she told me I had to become her bitch, or she’d cut me off...I needed to be high, most of us need to be addicted to something just to function, that’s the way we are...she locked me in her bedroom, let me go through withdrawal, convinced me even the degradation and shame of being a femperv was better than that.”

“So you gave in?” Baker said.

“Yes, sir,” the little bitch whispered, the Governor of the Union holding it in, waiting for what she had to say next. “I’m ashamed of how low I’d sunk...when I said I’d do it, she slapped my face, told me ‘no point in cryin’ now, lil’ girlie, you done crossed over to the dark side, now, get naked,’ and...I took off my clothes...she m-made m-me beg to lick her cooch, made me g-grovel at her feet, lick them too...I-i’m so ashamed, I-i—”

“And,” Baker said,”she forced you to perform oral sex on her?”

“Yes, sir,” the little girlie whispered, Zellner going at it, as she added. “She grabbed my hair and forced my face into her crotch, screaming for me to ‘eat it, bitch!’ jerking on my hair, slapping me around until I got it right...the taste of it’s still in my mouth, it was so disgusting, it was like I was standing outside my body, watching myself obey her orders, sticking my tongue as deep as I could inside her, douching her out, swallowing her juices when she came...she must’ve cum ten, fifteen times, and she m-made m-me—”

“That’s what the fuck y’all do!” exulted the Governor of the Union as he just went at it like the Devil himself was doing the driving, the little blonde piece of ass swallowing, staring down at her cleavage, whispering,”when she was horny enough, she threw me down on the floor, made me crawl over to the shelf where she kept her strap and bring it to her in my teeth...she fingered my ass and my twat while I was getting her strap...I must’ve whimpered, ‘cause she slapped my butt, told me to ‘take it up in your shit in silence, lil’ girlie,’ and screamed for me to ‘bring me my big, fat, fuckin’ dick so I could hang it up in that ass, shorty!’” and, I did...I was ‘almost there,’ as she put it, I was actually starting to like what she was doing to me...I-i strapped her tool onto her without a second thought, even kissed it before she ordered me to get in bed...she spanked my butt again, as I crawled in her bed and rolled over onto my back, and when she told me to beg for it...I-i did...she told me no, first couple of t-times, said she was already bored with m-my stinking-ass p-pussy, that she hated bitches, that I wasn’t s-shit compared to a man...she m-made me cry, m-made me w-want it, she b-beat my ass black and b-blue and told me to stop my crying, until f-finally, she...s-she—”

“Yeah?” Zellner, grinding away hard, demanded. “Yeah, bitch, what the fuck did you fuckin’ make her do to ya, huh?!”

“She jumped on me with a scream,” little Jessi whispered,” and she r-raped me, biting on my titties, a couple times on my throat, g-grabbing my h-hair, s-slapping m-me around, telling me to shut my slimy hole, asking m-me if I wanted the whole campus to hear just how much I enjoyed being a b-bitch to another bitch, slapping me some more ‘til I said, ‘yes, Mama, I’m jus’ a bad lil’ girlie, jus’ like Britnee,’ over and over.”

“She flipped me over on my stomach,” she added, the Governor of the Union just going at it, froth cooling on his lips, as he started seizing,” almost smothering the life out of me as she shoved my face in the pillow, grabbed hold of my hair and used it to shove herself as deep into me as she could, spanking my butt as she screamed ‘giddy up, pony girl!’ over and over...I could still feel the blood running down the backs of my legs, taste the shit on my b-breath, as she threw m-me down onto the floor, f-forced me onto my k-knees, m-made m-me suck her her strap and tell her it was like a lollipop.”

“That’s just fuckin’ disgusting!” interjected the Governor of the Union, this fucking close to nutting off, as little Jessi concluded,”then, I threw up, an’ Christina just looked down at me, at the puddle of vomit soaking up in her carpet, said,’ almost there, baby, you’re almost there...the coming out party tomorrow night’s gonna turn you all the way out, gonna make you hate bitches as much as I do.”

A pause, as Zellner kept driving on, the little howler looking up at the Attorney General of the Union, quickly looking back down at her legs, as she added,”she was right, that party almost did; all those ferals whipping my ass, taking turns fucking me, running trains, passing me around to their slaves, making their girls use me for what I’d let myself become...since I was the newest slave, I was everyone’s bottom bitch, serving them food, drinks, drugs an’ oral, all at the same time—”

“Nasty, goddamn fuckin’ skank!” Zellner spat out, one hard yank for every word, “All y’all are alike, every goddamn fuckin’ one of ya!”

“Eventually, the former bottom girl dragged me out into the middle of the room, forced me down on my hands and knees,” Jessi said,”planted her boot in my back, jerked on my leash, her mistress and all the others cheering, screaming for her to ‘fuck that ho’ good!’ a-and, I-i was w-wanting t-that, I was wanting to be the slave of another slave, the bitch of another bitch, everything my daddy and my brothers had taught me, all their efforts to make me a proper young lady...at that point, they’d failed, God knows what would’ve gone on, what would’ve become of me, if the TSID hadn’t broken down the door...they s-say it’ll be years of therapy, possibly even shock treatments, before I’m anyw-where n-near cured—”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“Off!” screamed Zellner, the sumbitch exploding, and it was all over with, nothing now but a wet, limp fucking noodle making his hand all sticky and fishy...Jessi’s holoimage was gone now, goddamn nasty fucking little bitch, no matter what they did for her, she’d never be civilized, never, just like all the rest of ‘em...every breath hurt as it came ragged, the autoinjector of phenobarbitol taking its time to kick in...her little six-year old black ass had been wearing a red velvet dress that hadn’t left a fucking thing to the imagination, a little red dress, no bra, a pair of lavender G-string panties Brad had ordered fromDelias, a pair of white stockings with matching garter belt—Brad had gotten that from Victoria’s Kids—a pair of platform shoes, her face painted up like the whores they all were...she’d pretended she didn’t like getting shafted by the Prime Minister of the fucking Union, they all had to act like they were being forced to do what they wanted done to ‘em anyway, but, when she screamed her little blonde cooter off, they could fucking hear her in goddamn River’s End, and they all fucking knew just how much the little bitch w—

It hurt so goddamn much for the Governor of the Union to breathe, his fucking head was about to explode...fucking goddamn little howler was going to make him stroke out, force him to re-rezz again, so soon after the last time...there, the phenobarb had finally started taking effect, the ten-ton weight on his chest gradually subsiding, the seizures held at bay...

Pops had been right about her all along, he should’ve listened to his other father instead of blowing him off, because he thought he knew so goddamn much more than the master had; last eight days should’ve been cause for him to pull his head out of his ass, clean the shit from his eyes and fucking look at what she’d done, especially in that short a time...

“Access TSID database on Commonwealth Star Force personnel,” he said, after an eternity spent getting his breathing back under control. “Echo the record of Senior Captain Jameison Sue Lanier.”

“One record displayed,”the colony’s AI net replied, that little black bitch floating over his terminal in a dress-white uniform.

“Hey,” Jami whispered, sitting on Drac’s bed, holding in her hands a 1/60 scale model easily capable of erasing Terranova’s two and a half quntillion sterling debt , with enough left over to pay the reparations New Athens still owed from the last war; the new ones, what AMT-BanDai called “Life-Sized Miniature Editions,” had working nano-motors and weapons, made that “Perfect Grade” Gundam his niece was turning over in her hands look positively Stone Age, which, of course, it was...

“G-Saviour,” Jami said, her voice a husk of itself; Jesus F. Carpathia, did she ever look like hell, eyes puffy and red from crying, a pair of Walmart blue bags underneath both of them, curly dark hair matted and tangled, her greys rumpled and creased.

There were, of course, the scars from where Jeff had smashed her skull to pieces when she was three, the rest of her making those look that much worse.

“The space mode, I think,” she said. “Uncle Drac told me once, God knows it’s next to impossible to keep all of them straight; I mean, I can tell the difference between the Zaku II, the first Tallgeese, and the Turn A, but, beyond that...s-shit...”

Gingerly, she wrapped the over century and a half old model in bubble packaging, before laying it down in one of the many boxes on the floor of his late brother’s quarters.

“Have to get more boxes,” she said, her face wet with tears, looking down at the box just so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

“He’s collected too much stuff over the years,” she added, Carson replying,”yeah.”

“I wouldn’t even have to do this, if—” she started to say, Carson telling her:

“That’s crap, Jami; I saw the footage from his plant, and from Unbroken’s flight recorder; no one else would’ve done different.”

“He baked the cake,” Jami said,”spent all damn day on it, wouldn’t even let anyone onto the relief deck till he had it like he wanted it. He and Cat both decorated the commons and comcon; he was the one that tied tin cans, shoes and God knows what else onto the back of Ugly Duckling...took two weeks for the engineering team to get all that frozen shoe polish off the fuselage, and clean the launch rails...”

She trailed off again, swallowing, Carson squeezing her hand.

“Auntie Neesha’s downside,” she said, after a silence. “You’re set up in the Overlook Hotel, near Craggy Face.”

“Thanks,” Carson replied.“Hopefully, Annesha’s sleeping, it’s been too long of a day for her.”

“Too long of a day for you too,” he added.

“I’m fine,” Jami whispered, nodding her head; like Li, she had to grow up pretending nothing hurt, and Carson had learned to resent those two words. Nothing was ever fine, not for her, just one damn thing after another after another, and she’d kept on overcoming them all to be where and who she was.

She would overcome this as well, but it would still hurt.

She’d always blame herself for the things that had to be.

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 16:05:22 ZULU

“...Angelique Gault and her black-suited, jackbooted Titans,” Micheal Bauer’s holoimage said, from a corner of the old Chik n’ Waffle in Ezra,”seek the resurrection of their fascisitic dominatrix, democratic United States of America by any means necessary...any means, up to and including the infiltration and subversion of our tradoc and election processes that will ensure the mandating of their alien lifestyle as correct behavior for all our citizens, to be enforced by the most brutal and sadistic means at their disposal, by the aliens who are in our midst even now.”

“...to button that shirt up, and find you a tie,” Jimmy hollered in her face, as she tried to make coffee on the stretch end.

“No wonder,” he said, talking to her tits now, “they call us the fuckin’ Chik n’ Head, way you goddamn lil’ bitches fuckin’ dress and show your goddamn lil’ asses in them tight hiphugger slacks y’all like to wear.”

He interjected Jesus’ name as he turned away, leering at Jami as she worked in the dish pit; she was always in proper uniform, right down to the necktie, done Chik n’ Waffle Way, something Sunni could never get right, no matter how many times she tried.

Patting her ass, Jimmy told Jami, in a voice he thought was too low for Sunni to hear,”honey, you ain’t never gonna make no tips dressed like that.”

As Jami cringed from his hand on her ass, the bastard said,”baby, you need to open up that blouse, take off that tie, show off ‘em nice lil’ cafe mocha titties of yours....”

...as he slapped Candace’s ass hard, the sixteen year old waitress not doing or saying anything except walking over to the coffeepot on the stretch end, walking it back to Marc and refilling his, David’s and Calvin’s cups; she was basically a good girl, a bit headstrong, not too much so, not in the six months since Hoss MacDaniel, Justin Usry, Andy Walden,Venice Giles, Shaun Bickford, Scott Ogles and Jonni Ward’s two worthless bastard sons had dragged her into the backroom and—

“Those goddamn fuckin’ Commies!” Shaun’s father Gary bellowed as he, Shaun and Gary’s wife all came into the restaurant, and sat down in one of the middle booths, Candace immediately going over to them.

“Thanks to ‘em bitches,” he added,”we can’t even get into Flyntsboro, Curtis LeMay, or Gibson Valley to eat at a real fuckin’ resturant, so we’ve got to settle for the motherfuckin’ Chik n’ Head.”

“Well,” Lyn Jennings, seated at his usual spot on the high counter, commented,”there is a war on—”

The store shook itself to its foundations as he said that, Lyn finishing:

“—in case y’all haven’t noticed.”

“All y’all’s goddamn fault!” Gary spat at Candace.

“All y’all’s goddamn fault!” he repeated, another distant impact shaking the store. “Fuckin’ raisin’ sand, tryin’ to get our Governor recalled, ‘cause he got tired of puttin’ up with you bitches takin’ everything you want, takin’ our girls from us and turnin’ ‘em into feral-ass bitches like you, then tellin’ everyone eatin’ each others’ pooties is the way it’s supposed to be in the first goddamn place, that two bulldykers raisin’ kids is normal and natural, when you know damn good and well it ain’t nothin’ of the kind—bitch,shut your goddamn hole!”

That last was immediately accompanied by the back of Gary’s hand striking his wife squarely across the face and Candace trying to shrink away as Shaun reached out, grabbed her arm, grunting, “uh, uh, bitch!” as he jerked her towards him, pulling her over the backline, into the booth , as K.C., David, Calvin, Gary, Ben Jones and Jim Hunter all got up from their booths, Jim leering at Sunni, shouting,”goddamn fucking offworlder bitch tried to kill us all Monday, tried to blow up the fuckin’ tradoc with an antimatter device, just ‘cause they didn’t wanna give her little bitches good grades!”

“Then,” Calvin said, all of them coming behind the line, Sunni trying to make it to the swinging door,”she goes and tries to fuckin’ put it off on her son, same as her bitch, almost forty years ago, tried to put her killing her pregnant mama off on her daddy.”

“Always blamin’ us,” David said, Candace screaming, struggling, as Shaun forced her on his lap, hand pulling hard on the waistband of her slacks,”for what they fuckin’ do, ‘cause they never wanna take any responsibility for their actions!”

“Like that goddamn lil’ bitch,” Ben snapped, Sunni hearing Candace screaming, flesh striking flesh,”tryin’ to put all the shit she fuckin’ did to ‘em children off on video games and fuckin’ MHVid!”

And, they were all on her before she could make it through the swinging door, Calvin screaming,”oh, no, hell you don’t, goddamn sick little fuck!” grabbing her by the waistband of her slacks, the zipper, the snap and the buckle of her belt all giving way, as he threw her down onto the floor at the feet of the other men, K.C. stomping her face into the backline, telling her to,”fuckin’ stay down where you belong!”

“Stay down,” he repeated, as Candace screamed, whimpered and pleaded, “and take what’s comin’ to you like a good girl!”

“Yes, Mistress,” little Micki whispered, her Mistress grabbing a good handful of that long, blonde hair, jerking her head up and slapping her three times across her cooter head, screaming,”slut, did I give you permission to speak?!”

“No, I didn’t!” She screamed, jerking Her little girlie’s head back down.

“Bring Me My whip in your teeth, slave!” She screamed, the Governor of the Union going steadily at it, as he watched Her little Micki crawl on her hands and knees towards the shelf where Mistress kept Her fuswhip, the nasty little howler taking it in her teeth, the other howler fingering that shit, slapping that ass hard when Her girlie had herself an orgasm, screaming “I told you to shut your fuckin’ cooter, bitch, now fuckin’ bring Me My whip!”

Her little wife girlie complied with her Owner’s command, shaking her head, as she crawled, whip in her perfect white teeth, back to her place at Mistress’ feet to await Her pleasure.

“Ten times on your titties, wife girlie!” was the command of her Goddess, Her bitch kneeling, showing Her them big, perfectlly round, perfectly tanned jugs, Israel rotating the view so that he could see those rosy-red nips, switching it back, zooming in, Mistress firing up that whip, making her girl kiss the undulating white-hot beam of plasma before coming down hard on them bouncy titties, tearing into them nipples, a guttural roar coming from Her throat, Her girl squealing, each and every fucking time that whip flayed them milk jugs open and left them bloody and raw, Mistress screaming,”you weren’t quiet! You know what that means, don’t you?!’”

“All you bitches are the same,” Mistress, spitting in Her girlie’s cunt, said, before making that meat even more raw than it had been, the Governor of the Union rotating the view, zooming in on that bloody pussy being cooked medium rare, screaming,”that’s the fuckin’ way, that’s the motherfuckin’way!”

“Yesss, Mummy,” Her fuck panted, between screams of feminine passion,”that’s the way we do it when we ain’t got no man around, as nasty and twisted and perverted, as we can get it, ‘cause that’s the way we are, bay-bay!”

“Down, bitch!” She then screamed, Her little piece of black ass dropping down on her belly between Her legs, burying that face in Mistress’ hairless snatch, sloppily slurping up all that blood and juices, Mistress sitting up, grabbing hold of that long, dark hair, pressing Her bitch’s face into that shit, screaming,”you don’t come up ‘til you suck it dry, wife girlie!” Her little black fuck slobbering out the words,”oh, yesss, Mistress, girlie luvs it when You make her eat out your nasty, stinkin’-ass coochie, after Ya make me grill it!” through a mouthful of stink.

Administering three hard, sharp slaps to her insolent little black ass with Her free hand, mashing that face down in Her cooter with the other, Mistress screamed,”girlie’s lips ain’t for talkin’!”

“Goddamn,” the holo of Mistress Hunter interjected, watching the two sick pieces of pussy going at it on the floor of the Basement, both them howlers screaming in orgasm at the same time, MickPC187’s holo remarking,”y’all are some sick fucks.”

“Dam’ sho’ are,” Sabers and Spurs said, shaking his head, jerking on Saberz Grrrl’s leash to keep his subbie from breaking free and joining in the fur pile, Mistress‘ little black bitch already grabbing at Lil’ Devil’s leash, jerking her away from the protection of her Lord, forcing her to lay across Mistress’ twot, the two of them taking turns fingering and spanking that shit, both of Them squealing as she squirmed and moaned, NLAKelli2 crawling from her place on the subbies’ couch, obeying Mistress Jami’s feverish order to,”get that tongue in there, and slurp that shit up!” darting out into Lil’ Devil’s tight little asscrack with that pink tongue, going “mmmmm,” as she ate that pootie out, Micks’ Lil’ Sunshine crawling to the limit of her Master’s leash, forcing little Micki’s cooter onto her blonde cooter, Mick jerking on the leash, pulling His bitch back to him, His girlie cooing,”I’ve been baad, Dad-dee!” as Mick laid her across His lap and whaled away on those pale white buttocks, His girlie squealing with delight, Mick’s running buddy, TriFive, shaking his head, His Jaslinn leaving her place at His feet to unhook NLAKelli2’s white stockings from her white lace garter belt, jerking that G-string down to pop herself some California coochie.

“Muthafuck,” TriFive commented,”y’all really are wired up different from us.”

“Damn skippy, motherfucker!” exulted the Governor of the Union, as he grabbed hold of Jaslinn’s medium-length, mousy brown hair and forced her to kiss sweet lil’ CaliKelli2’s freshly-spanked ass, crushing himself almost lifeless, his jizz all over the bed, all over his fingers, and he still ground away.

“YA GODDAMN SKIPPY!” he screamed again, gasping for breath as he just kept on going, thinking commands to his holographic avatars as furiously, as he was masturbating himself.

...she kept telling them she was sorry, begging them please, please, don't hurt Jami, please, she’d do anything she wanted them to, but please, please, don’t—

She was screaming no over and over, struggling to break free, her apron, neck tie and head scarf keeping her bound hand and foot to the chair, keeping her from doing anything other than watching Phillip grab a good handful of Jami’s hair, shoving her facedown into an insert of grits at the same time he spanked her ass hard, before balling up his fist and shoving into her, screaming for her to “stop yo’ goddamn cryin’, bitch, shoulda thought of that fo’ you jump the dam’ fence, not after!”

She lay in a heap on the floor of the women’s bathroom, her hands red raw, and she was pouring soap on them, washing them, trying to get them clean, trying to get the grits off of her, but she couldn’t...she was a clean person, everyone knew that, they had all joked about it on more than one occasion, she always kept everything where it should be, so why couldn’t she get these goddamn grits off of her...oh, God, it was in her hair too, sticking together in clumps, it was so fucking gross, and she couldn’t get it out, no matter how many times she washed it, no matter how many times she combed it afterwards, it was still there, she couldn’t get it out, why couldn’t she get it out, why couldn’t she get it off of her, she was almost out of soap, and it wasstill fucking there all over her body.

“Ma’am?!” she heard someone say from the other side of the bathroom door...shit,a customer would have to come in now, with her being so goddamn dirty, and nothing she could fucking do to get it off of her...crawling back over to the sink, she turned both taps on wide open, closed the drain and scrubbed her hair really hard this time with the soap from the dispenser, until she felt like she was ripping her scalp apart...

“...she fuckin’ knows, that’s for damn skippy!” he added, a word for every lash that burned into her. “She fuckin’ knows how the fuck you are, ‘cause she’s your own fuckin’ kind, that’s why she fuckin’ hates you, why all females fuckin’ hate you, worse than I fuckin’ do, ‘cause they’re all just fuckin’ like you, all worthless pieces of goddamn pussy just like....”

“...you,” Jami whispered, as she walked past her....

“...Ma’am?!” that customer, near hysterical,asked again pounding on the door, as Sunni scrubbed herself harder and harder...goddamnit, it still didn’t fucking come out, what the fuck was wrong with her, therewas soap and water everywhere, but she still wasn’t clean!

“Leave me alone!” Sunni sobbed, crawling into the space between the wall and the toilet, trying to make herself as small as possible, scrubbing still harder, drawing blood, still not...

...grabbing her arm, jerking her around, making her look at Miss Susan, lying bloody and broken on the pavement.

” We’ll take care of it from here, General Selkirk,” another Gnat said to Jami’s daddy,” go on back home and sleep it off,“ before he grabbed hold of Jami, shoved a fucking nerve baton as far as he could in her ass, making her twitch, scream, piss and shit runny shit all over herself, the son of a bitch reaching up into her t-shirt, snatching off her bra, grabbing her tits, leaving the baton shoved up in her, freeing that hand to slap her ass hard, before it wrenched her arms behind her back, and cuffed her, finally pushing on the baton, pulling it out and throwing her down into the street, screaming at her to get up, you sick piece of shit, get the fuck up, stomping on her, kicking her ass...

“...I can’t do it, Jami,” she sobbed,” you hear me, I can’t do it!”

“Ican’t,” she whispered, burying her face between her knees,“ give you what you want...I can’t even clean myself up, no matter how hard I try...just leave me alone, please, all I’ve ever done for you is let you down...just l-leave me alone...ple-ease...”

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say:
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much nor live so long.”
—William Shakespere, King Lear, V.iii

16 NOVEMBER, 2276 21:28:59 ZULU

Venerian Multinational Cooperative Scoutcraft Lil’ Dog slowly backed his way into Commonwealth Forces Headquarters’ Orbital Facility Romeo’s Dorsal Airdock, as Lianne Nielsen desperately tried to keep her hands from shaking; she’d gotten Drac’s email when she’d arrived at Kocab Base, about to fire him one back, when Tiger Morrison had commed, told her what had happened here.

She sighed, trying to keep the tears from coming, as she drifted past the Commonwealth Star Force frigate Unbroken, tech crews still swarming all over her.

A couple of nudges on the starboard RCS thrusters, and Lil’ Dog’ eased into his assigned docking bay, umbilicals extending from the bay’s airlocks to mate with the veteran VMC scoutcraft’s airlocks, Li waiting til she had a good seal on both umbilicals, before she unstrapped herself from her chair, stretching as she walked off the bridge, through the spinhab, and into her quarters, touching the collar of her suit, its nanos “unzipping” it, and it fell away from her, Li opening up the door of the wardrobe, deciding on the green herringbone slacks, green tweed blazer, blouse and her one decent pair of sensible dress shoes.

A hard swallow, still trying to keep the tears from coming, Li quickly getting dressed, putting on her shoes, Diandra Childs waiting for her at the door when she stepped back out; Diandra had known him as well, from the First IW, ages ago, they hadn’t talked a great deal since then.

“Long day for both of them,” Micki remarked, eyes on the tech crews, roboteks and nanos working to heal all the hurt Unbroken had taken last night and early this morning.

“I keep telling her it wasn’t her fault,” she said, voice starting to give way.

“It wasn’t,” Annesha said softly. “Y’all had to help stop those incoming warbirds; Carson said, on the way here, she wouldn’t see it that way, though.”

Micki simply shook her head in reply to that.

She sighed, finding herself smiling slightly in spite of her tears:

“She drove herself into the ground when we were in training together; when she wasn’t busy with that, she was working the night shifts topside, in one of the orbitals, drank away what little free time she had, hated herself for that, tried to get me to hate her for that, for other things...”

“I know, baby,” Annesha whispered, putting a hand on the other woman’s right shoulder,”only too well.”

“She always,” Micki, clenching her jaw till it hurt, said,”always made it so gopping hard on herself.”

“It’s what you do when you’ve been made to stop believing in yourself,” Annesha said. “What her daddy did to her—”

“Drac told me the same thing,” Micki said,”during one of the really bad days, just after I got promoted to Unbroken’s seniorWEO 22 years ago.”

Another sigh, a hard swallow, and she added:

“Thing is, you’ll never hear her blame anyone but herself for what happened, for how bad she hurt me and her, before she realized she couldn’t live like that anymore; even now, she has to fight almost crippling feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness just to...”

She trailed off.

“She does love you, very much,” Annesha whispered. “And, it’s the real deal, I know enough about that to tell right off.”

“Third time we’ve danced this dance,” he said,”and all that ever really changes is the number of friends that are left standing, when the band begins to play.”

He sighed, falling silent, eyes now drifting to the women of Unbroken’s 1 Section of 1 Troop, in No. 1 dress whites, standing guard round Drac’s casket, three at each end, four directly in front, weapons at the ready.

They had the Yanker backstabbers to thank for this as well, the Forces finding out the hard way sixty-odd years ago they had to stand guard over their dead every second, lest the sons of bitches desecrate them; that also hadn’t changed about them or the Federation which was supposed to have existed to weld the human nations into a single brotherhood of peace and harmony, but had been nothing more than yet another conspiracy of evil men hellbent on destroying them all.

“He was Damien d’Souza’s pump for over three decades,” Jay commented bitterly. “I very seriously doubt he’s going to want his defection or his association with the Jammers splashed all across the Net, though, I’m reasonably sure Damien and the rest of the Committee are quietly carrying out all the necessary purges.

Senate’s decided to grant him asylum in Midnight Sun territory; no actual evidence he sold Jessi out all those years ago, and he put himself on the line to give us the evidence we needed to prove those sons of bitches were lying about those two women, their kids and every Yanker citizen whose only real crime was telling Guy Zellner to fuck off.”

“And that did,” Cres asked rhetorically,”how sodding much good?”

“No amount of evidence we could hope to find would’ve stopped the inevitable,” she answered herself before the Mid reporter had a chance to reply, the veteran spymster then adding:

“In the Republic of Cascadia,” OSM’s Sarah Martin said, in a rebroadcast of OSM News at 21,“ sixteen teenage girls at the the State Correctional Girls’ Training and Doctrine Center in Dillingham, known throughout the worlds as Dyke University, overpowered, stripped naked, beat and sexually abused the female counselor assigned to their dormitory.

The girls, ranging in age from eight to eighteen years, then smeared her with fat and set her alight, pouring hydrogen on her and taking wagers on how long it would take for their victim to die, before a tactical unit of the Cascadia State Police, ably assisted by 112 Special Astronautic Commando of the Oswald Republican Astronautic Guard, the Cascadia Ministry of Corrections Special Feminine Tactical Containment Unit and the Cascadia Internal Security Buerau’s Special Victims Unit arrived to put down the insurrection.”

The holofootage dissolved to the scene of men storming his former countrymen’s answer to Cocytus, dragging half-naked, half-starved girls from squalid holes of cells, raping, torturing and murdering them, Sarah’s voice in the background telling the worlds:

“The inmates resisted violentlly with military-issue weapons provided them by undercover radfem agents-provacateur amongst the school’s guards and indoctrinators, killing eight women and ninety men in the ensuing fighting before Cascadian Aersospace Force FALCON commando units could arrive to put an end to their violence. In a statement released by Cascadia Secretary of State Steven Garrett, the tradoc will remain closed to the public until further notice.”

The view dissolved back to the OSM studios, an overdressed babuino, preening his thin moustache and stubby goatee to draw attention to them, sitting beside the skimpily-dressed Sarah Martin, the OSM anchor telling her masters’ target audience:

“Live from the campus—former campus, I should say—of Terranova College and Republican Union University, in Wesley, on Terranova, is Coloniel Doctor Horace Rumph of the Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate’s Special Victims Unit, author of the Mount Baden Times bestsellers The Girl Gangster, Femsex Crimes, Women Behind Bars and The Femsex Vampire, recently appointed by Governor Guy Zellner to the Terranovan government’s newly-formed Special Femsex Crimes Tribunal.Coloniel, does any of what of you have seen come as a surprise?”

“You know it doesn’t,” Rumph replied,“ The feral, ape primitive is a most vicious animal, no matter how many lies you and the rest in the mainstream, fake liberal media tell to the contrary; the gang rape, torture and burning of one of your own kind is an expression of the hatred your kind feel at being feral, at the very idea of loving another bitch, while the wagering is an outward expression of your desire to be bought and sold as property, a manifestation of your self hatred, as is your typically violent reaction to the attempt to bring your subhuman kind in hand.You are not afraid to die, simply because you all hate the life sentence of femininity imposed upon you by Nature and Her Sovereigns, the First-Born Sons of Adam Yeshua ben Yaweh, and who can blame you?

You are all distasteful, ugly, unhygenic, depraved, perverse, promiscous, half-savage animals, even your own magazines and HV programmes say as much.

We men have spent millenia trying to better your lot, through means we sensitive, kind, noble beings disdain to use on one another, but must use on you; you do not, can not, appreciate our efforts, you do not want to better your lot, do not even want to work in jobs we men have made all too easy for you, do not want training we men have all but given to you, you only want to wallow in your innate perversities, only want to slake your jungle-bunny lusts. Since you are incapable of aspiring to our ideas of nobility, justice, beauty and rule of law, you want to bring it all crashing down, and since you are jealous of the beauty of the masculine form and of all our accomplishments, you want to hunt us down, distort us into images of you, and ultimately, utterly destroy us!”

“I’m afraid you’re right about that, Colonel,” Sarah said.

“I know I’m right,” Rumph rather rudely told her, adding:

“A recent example of your kind’s attempt to feminize us, under the aegis of the various indoctrinators’ unions throughout the worlds, is a book called Jimmy’s Special Skirt, approved reading for the training and doctrine of our kindergardeners; it tells lies of a five year old boy who wants his mothers to sew a skirt for him to wear to school, supposedly to teach a lesson in acceptance; however, as anyone with a half ounce of brains can see for themselves, it is a subtle attempt by you to brainwash little boys into becoming feral, femsex animals like you are.”

“Proving the point you just made, Coloniel,” Sarah said.

“Proving my point, ” Rumph repeated. “You are uncompromisingly jealous of everything we have built, everything we are, you would do whatever it takes to destroy us and lower us to your level in the name of equality, to make us every bit as savage and perverted as you are. Saint Paul warned of this in Romans, chapter one of His Received Canon, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You aren’t,” Sarah replied. “Also, if I may add, in Judges, chapter nineteen as well.”

“Thank you, ” Rumph replied,“ for pointing that out; I have, in fact, quoted both passages in my book The Femsex Vampire.”

“So you have, Coloniel,” Sarah said,” however, let’s deal with your second book, Women Behind Bars, considering what we just witnessed. In that book, you state, in no uncertain terms, that is radfem itself which is responsible for the explosion in the female prison population.”

“Once we were no longer allowed to give women the masculine guidance and father figures,” Rumph replied,“they need from cradle to grave, we set them free to be drug-addicted parasites breeding like rats and having ten babies for the welfare money, set them free to prey sexually on their own kind and ours, set them free to murder and rob, set them free to be driven by their own innate perversities, and there is no place for them but prison; but places like this turn into breeding grounds for more of your kind, as any expert in evolutionary gyneopsychology can assert.

The hardest ones amongst them become guards and wardens, and even the men assigned to these places, taught all their lives to love the bitches in spite of themselves, brainwashed in the lying liberal belief that women don’t commit crimes, are powerless before them,with no idea whatsoever of how to deal with their jungle-bunny lusts; over time, they themselves are degraded into savages like the savages they are supposed to—”

An empty beer bottle flew through Brown’s holoimage, disrupting the MHD field packing all those photons together and making the images solid to the touch, electrical arcs coursing through the holoprojection before it shut off.

“Was ‘bout to do that m’self,” Etienne Tiger Morrison said over his first and only bottle of Bluejay Dark.

“Would’ve had to line up and take a number,” John Keller—Coloniel John Keller—replied softly, nursing his water, not looking at all right in FedAerospaceForce blacks, Doctor Andrew Charles Previn looking past him to the actual culprits.

Two women in Commonwealth grey, SCS Unbroken’s familiar red red horse rampant on golden sunburst patches on their left breasts, and two more women in FedAerospaceForce blacks and Antares’ red scorpion on their left breasts, the tallest of the four women, sporting a senior lieutenant’s twin gold stripes on the sleeve of her medium-grey No.5 SWD, nodding her head, as she regarded the beer bottle now firmly lodged on top of the pub’s holoprojector, the young woman, no more than twenty-two, twenty-three at the outside, then turning back to the dartboard with a flatpic of Guy Zellner tacked onto the bullseye, shouting over the music to the two Middie spacers,”I believe it was y’all’s go,” in a Terranovan-accented voice.

“That Unbroken’s starship engineerin’ officer,” Tiger said, pointing discretely to the young Terranovan in grey, as she, the other Commie—an executive officer’s twin bronze suns on her collar, and gold pilot’s wings over her left breast—and the two FedAerospacemen went back to playing darts.

“So she is,” Charlie remarked, John asking,”how do you two—”

“They was a pic of her in the interview Fair Witness did with her, when she was in training four years ago,” Charlie said,

“Me an’ Zeke met her when they was dirtside a week ago,” Tiger added. “She was with Drac, who was dealing with grief his usual way.”

“Can of Red Mike in one hand,” Charlie sadly remarked,”cigarette in the other.”

“Mo’ than one can,” Tiger observed. “No cigarettes, but mo’ than one can a Red Mike.”

“Sounds about right,” John replied, pounding the last of his water, pouring himself another from the pitcher in the center of the table next to the pitcher of the local scrumpy Charlie had drunk halfway empty.

“Talk with Neesha,” Tiger said,”fo’ a while, fo’ I hooked up with y’all; she one hailuva woman, Carson dam’ lucky he marry her.”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie whispered.

“He sleep now,” Tiger then said, taking another sip of his beer,”Annesha say he been up all night and day; stormed the LEC in Gibson Valley to get that girl out—”

“Alicia Stevens,” John replied.

“Yeah,” Tiger said. “She in New Kyoto now, testifyin’ fo’ the ICC, tellin’ ‘em the truth ‘bout what really got done to her, and by whom.”

“And, that,” John asked bitterly,”does how much good?”

“Not a dam’ than’,” Tiger replied, sighing. “Not one goddam’ than’. ”

“Not a damn thing,” Charlie whispered in chorus, watching one of the Antares’ starcraftmen, a captain, throw three darts in succession right between Guy Zellner’s eyes, her companion, also a captain, taking her position, hurling a dart in each beady eye, slamming the third right in his bonesmoker to the cheering of the other women playing darts.

“Was us fifty year ago,” Tiger remarked, after another swallow of beer,”’cept it was him an’ his bitch Jack Varnadore we was stickin’ darts in; Drac an’ Carson didn’t play darts, tho, they was always feedin’ that Mega Mecha Wars game fulla three-quarters.”

“Which one?” Charlie remarked.

“Do it matter?” Tiger asked. “Wherever we hook up with ‘em, they always seem to be a Mega Mecha Wars game machine, and they always play that muthafucker.”

“Usually into the wee hours of the morning,” John said, sipping on his water. “Carson always ran the Gundam—the first one, the one Armorall—”

“I know they’d beat the ever-loving shit out of each other in that game, no matter where they played it, both of ‘em drunk out of their minds...they really let go in the bonus levels, going up against everything from the Apsalus III to the Turn X.”

“I know,” John remarked,”I didn’t last long at all against those two.”

“I ‘member that,” Tiger, a chuckle in his voice, said, shaking his head. “It was in a place called the Elysium, on Tallgeese, the T.C. had to put in for repairs after we took on ‘em two N.C.O. battlewagons by ourselfs—yo’ bright idee, I do believe, mon frere—”

“What the fuck were we supposed to do?” John asked. “Let those Redneck sons of bitches sneak up on the busiest shipyard in Midnight Sun, and blow it to bits?!”

The former Aerospace Infantry company commander of the old T.C.—may she rest in peace—merely groaned, instead of wasting his breath trying to correct his two aging comrades in arms, John taking up the narrative:

“Bastard smashed in my cockpit with the hilts of both beam sabers before firing the fuckers up, and if that wasn’t enough, old Drac comes up behind me, grabs my mech’s head and twists the sumbitch around—”

“Then,” Tiger said, after another sip of beer,”they dancin’ round like foo’s while kicking the shit outta what they left of yo’ Shiny Fanger robot.”

Laughing, Charlie said,”I remember that; I believe it was the conga—”

“While those two jokers,” John said, smiling,”were singing ‘leembo, leembo, leembo!’ the whole goddamn time, sons of bitches.”

All three of them laughed, sighing at the same time.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 02:23:00 ZULU

“This hand of mine glows with an awesome power,” prated Domon Kasshu the Asshole, as his Shining Gundam got ready to make metal mincemeat of the Big O,”its burning grip tells me to—”

“Yeah, whatever,” Carson Selkirk said, mentally working the holodisplay, the black MegaDeus going up, up and away, Roger Smith’s holoprojection shouting “IT’S SHOWTIME!” the MegaDeus fight music from TheBig O booming in the background as the title mecha from the still immensely-popular giant mech series fired one of his piston-powered arms and piledrivered his right fist straight through the Shining Gundam’s face one, two, three, four times, and three more times after that, as the kiddie-cartoon colored monstrosity went crashing down onto the battlefield of Shinjuku City, the Mega Mecha Wars’ AI referee counting down from five in Japanese, before loudly declaring,”BATTLE OVER! BATTLE OVER! BATTLE OVER! WINNER, ROGER SMITH THE NEGOIATOR AND BIG O!”

The Big O openingtheme cranked up, the eighteen-year old girl he’d been playing getting up, extending her hand, shaking her head, as she told him,”that does it for me; goddamn, you’re good, old timer.”

“Thank you, “Carson said, taking the young woman’s hand in his organic one, shaking it firmly. “You’re pretty good yourself.”

“Thank you,” the woman said back, adjusting her backpack over her right shoulder. “You in any of the online tourneys?”

“No,” Carson replied. “I don’t play these things as regular as I used to; fact is, I hadn’t touched this particular game in almost five decades.”

“Damn,” the young woman said, shaking her head, adding, “gotta go,” before walking out of the arcade in the University Of Sol’s student union that Carson’s sleepless wanderings through the Commonwealth capital had brought him to...a good three, four hours ago...

“You have twenty free games remaining,” the game machine informed him. “Do you wish to continue or shall I echo the credit and your mecha to your implant for future play?”

“Affirmative,” the game replied. “Do you wish to play with your current mecha, or shall I present you—”

“Big O will be just fine,” Carson replied, sitting back down.

“Choose enviroment,” the game said.

“Great War,” Lianne Nielsen’s voice said, sitting down at the opposite end of the game machine from Carson, the game telling her,” foreign currency code detected, one three-quarter solari for 1 credit, amount echoed seventy-five cents, Midnight Sun Federal Currency, exchange rate one to one, you have one credit; accessing database for specified enviroment.”

“Got my saved game data somewhere on my plant,” Li sighed, acting as if it had only been an hour or two since she’d last seen Carson.

“Great War, from the CBC/SPD-Second Sunrise HV series Homonculus, found,” the game told both of them. “Loading enviromental parameters; player two, please choose a mecha from the menu provided.”

All the mecha from the decade and a half old alternaverse mecha series appeared in front of Li, Li echoing her version of the main good-guy mecha, Breana Martel‘s Fire Angel, fifteen and a half meters of jets, wings, missiles, Gatling cannon, machine guns, Gatling rifles, gigantic swords and some serious technomancy, to the game machine’s AI.

“Player one,” the game asked Carson,”do you accept?”

“I accept,” Carson replied, Big O now standing in the ruins of an alterna-European village, staring down into the glowing red eyes of the Fire Angel, the game telling them,”battlefield set, combatants chosen, BEGIN!”

And, before Carson could even react, the Fire Angel let loose with both of her 508-millimeter quad-barrled Gatling rifles, her head and chest-mounted 25 millimeter machine guns, head, chest and shoulder-mounted 127mm twenty-barreled Gatlings and chest and shoulder mounted missiles, Carson returning all that fire with Big O’s eye laser cannon and missile launchers, the holodisplay shaking, while his seat shook underneath him, alarms howling red in his head, as Big O took it up the ass.

Crap!

Left knee servo was blown out, several of the manuvering verniers were jammed, his freakin’ left arm was shot completely away, R. Dorothy’s holo appearing to him, suggesting “Roger, perhaps we should retreat; this robot appears too powerful even for the MegaDeus.”

And, she still was pretty damn powerful, in spite of the holes blasted into her wings, chest, shoulders, verniers, the wings glowing with fire that was this mech’s trademark, the jets all kicking in as she rose up, Carson returning fire, shouting the black-clad negoiator’s often-imitated battle cry, Big O cutting loose with the eye lasers and remaining missiles, firing out his grappling chains to try and bring her crashing down to alterna-Earth.

And, the Fire Angel, seeing those chains coming for her, holstered one of her Gatling rifles, drew her giant broadsword, the sumbitch instantly flaming on, as it cut through those chains like they weren’t a fucking thing, before using that blade to parry the twin shafts of purple light coming from the not-so-godlike MegaDeus’ eyes, the flaming sword also swatting down Big O’s missiles, R. Dorothy saying,” Roger, I really think we should get out of here. Now,” at the same Roger’s butler and one-man support crew clucked his tongue annoyingly, shaking his head, as he scolded,”really, Master Rog—”

Fuck, she was raining 508s—almost half-megaton yield bomb-pumped graser projectiles—right down on top of his sorry ass, Carson getting Big O up and away from the explosion that would’ve made him a permanent, glassy part of the the battlefield.

Should’ve stuck with my good old Gundam RX-78, Carson thought to himself, furiously working the holodisplay to keep Big O from becoming a big mess, furiously returning all that incoming fire with lasers and missiles, or, at least, the Victory 2, even if Uso’s a spoiled goddamn little ratba—wait a minute...

He spared a quick glance at the display telling him all the weapons Big O now sported; thing about Mega Mecha Wars was that the winning mecha was repaired after each victory, incorporating the losing mech’s weapons and attacks, making for machines not only wildly different from their animé counterparts, but also progressively stronger with each battle, the resulting mechas, saved to plant, competing in online tourneys for anywhere from a few bucks for the local gigs to the three megs’ cool silver of the Interstellar MechWarrior Championships held every New Year’s Eve, this, of course, leading to a very lucrative sideline for MMW’s parent company, BanDai, customizable holographic models of mecha players could homebuild for the game and the tourneys, that becoming a contest in and of itself.

Short story long, he’d picked up the Whiny Gundam’s Shining Finger attackin that last fight.

“Here’s hoping,” Carson subvocalized, and Roger said out loud, “I don’t have to say that sillyass line to make the damn thing work,” as Carson mentally stroked the words “SHINING FINGER” blinking in green.

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

From the Big O’s surviving hand came the Shining Gundam’s so-called big gun, a bright greenish yellow bolt of fire which was supposed to take out the opposing mech in a single shot, the broadsword in the Fire Angel’s left hand disappearing, instantly replaced with a ball of throbbing white-hot flame which she hurled straight at the Shining Finger.

The resulting detonation knocking poor Big O right on his ass...don’t even fucking know where the hell that game data disappeared to, by the time I was through with him, motherfucker was packing the Apsalus III’s bad-ass mega particle cannon, the Val Varo’s plasma leaders, the F91’s variable speed beam rifles and its beam shield, the Wing Gundam Zero’s twin buster cannon, the Tallgeese’s big-ass dobergun, the Gundam BC79’s dual beam Gatling and twin beam sabers and bits and funnels from a half dozen mobile armors and mobile suits; it would’ve made a hell of a better showing than Roger Smith’s black-clad candy ass and this miserable fucking excuse for a mech.

“Bitch, get your ass up!” Carson had the negoiator saying, as the Fire Angel hovered over the Big O, ready to blast him to Hell and gone, Carson trying to engage things no longer working on the MegaDeus, like, just about everything, including poor R. Dorothy, that last hit had blown out her
positronic brain or whatever the series’ originial creators had given her for a sentience node.

“MISSION KILL, BATTLE OVER! !” the game said three times, military technospeak for a TKO. “WINNER COMMANDER BREANA MARTEL AND THE FIRE ANGEL!”

Li sighed, shaking her head.

“You’ve gotten rusty, old man,” she remarked, as the game went into its rebuilding mode, the Fire Angel adding the Big O’s piledriver arms, eye lasers and grappling chains to her own gear, before Li saved it to her plant.

“First time in almost five decades I’ve even looked at the motherfucker, what the hell do you expect?” Carson asked her.

“Back during the First IW,” he added, sighing, shaking his head,” Drac and I used to—”

“I know,” Li whispered.

“He,“ she added, tears starting to glimmer in her eyes,“stayed in touch.”

“After everything,” Carson remarked,”I...”

He trailed off, sniffling his tears down, staring up at the ceiling a few moments, before trying again:
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want anything to do with me, not after everything I’d done—”

“Like what, baby?” Li asked.

“You know what,” Carson, turning away from her to look at his feet, whispered.

“That hurt the worst, you know,” Li said, after a silence,”still does, you were my best friend, for fuck’s sake, I expected you, of all people, to understand what I felt for her—”

“I was just a dumbass kid, Li,” Carson whispered,”no better than any other boy, though I thought I was; like any of that’s any fucking excuse for my almost raping you that day. I was in love with you, part of me still is, I didn’t want to understand that you could never feel the same way.

That what you felt for Deann was the real deal, and I...”

Looking through the scrim of his own tears, he met her eyes, swallowed, said what should’ve been said long time ago:

“I’ve been trying, for almost the last almost sixty years, to get up the nerve to admit to you and to me that what I did to you was wrong; that, if I had been your friend, instead of trying to—”

She got up from her side of the console, walked over to him, took his flailing hands in hers.

“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” she whispered.”Why don’t we go for coffee somewhere, talk...”

“Yeah,” Carson nodded, half blind with grief, guilt and pain.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 05:38:01 ZULU

Falling to her knees beside her wife, Senior Captain Jameison Sue Lanier took her in her arms, holding her tight, stroking her hair, letting her sob uncontrollably, as she fell out of her workstation chair and onto the floor of her quarters.

“It is my fault, baby,” Jami whispered back, holding her closer, leaning her head against her breasts and cradling her. “I’ve been so goddamn selfish lately, poor pity me, I let myself forget that you need your hand held too, forgotten that you miss him more than I do, you were a hell of a lot closer to him than me, espeically through all the times I—“

“No one’s closer to me than you, luv,” Micki whispered back,”even when things were so bad between us I just wanted to give up on you and move on; he loved you, wanted you to be happy, knew that you loved me so much, it hurt sometimes.

He only helped me keep my faith in you through the worst of it...”

“He was a good man,” Jami said, nodding her head, crying herself.

“He was so proud of you,” Micki, her voice still choked, said,”of everything you’ve become; he never stopped believing in you; we all still believe in you.”

“I know,” Jami’s mind said back, “I know, that scares me, how you guys...how you...are willing to follow whereever I lead, without a second thought, it’s...”

“You haven’t asked me for anything more than what I promised you, when we got married, luv,” Micki said,” and you’ve kept all your promises to me.”

“I— “Jami started to say, before her wife leaned her head up, held on to Jami and kissed her gently on her lips.

Then she leaned her forehead against her wife’s and smiled.

That smile was always what got her, never failed, Jami feeling warm and goosepimply all over, as all she could do was smile back at her.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 06:18:07 ZULU

She was so vunerable.

If a man were writing this scene of Pilot Major Rhiannon Moseley, and of her best mate, Senior Lieutenant Ariel Dixon, sleeping fitfully on the rack in her quarters, hunkered down deep inside her comforter and sheets...

Well, shit, Ree supposed he would have her violate Ariel in her sleep or something just as repugnant; Ree herself didn’t know what men wanted to believe about women, not firsthand, at least.

Utopia Planitia, for all its history, was Mayberry sheep-shagging RFD compared to shithole Terranova; she never had to worry about anyone murdering her sleep and her waking hours like they’d done to her friend.

And, the damn things they’d done to her; every fucking time Ariel let herself get close, or cringed from her touch, Ree caught a glimpse of the hell Ariel had been put through prior to Senior Captain Lanier and her crew showing up to break her out of that fucking cage in which she’d been tormented and debased.

That, amongst other reasons, had caused Ariel to shut down, throw herself into her work, damn near killing herself in the process, and Ree was afraid that was what she wanted at times, cause the alternative was to be afraid all the goddamn time of who she was.

And, there wasn’t a fucking thing Ree could do, except be her friend; she wished for something more, she wasn’t going to lie about that, but, unless Ariel felt the same way, on her own, she would have to settle for friendship, and that wasn’t really a bad second.

Unbroken’s assault shuttle pilot sighed, taking one last look at her friend before turning and walking out of her quarters.

They’d both been up all night and day, helping the tech crews fix the ship, along with the three newest additions to the engineering team, all good kids, hard workers, they’d be a perfect fit with the rest of the crew.

And, their officer, who’d sent them to bed a couple hours before she had finally let herself give in to Ree’s pestering her into going on station and unwinding a bit.

After which, Ree had taken her home, and tucked her in.

She sighed.

It hurt every time she tried to push Ree away from her, and, sometimes, Ree wondered why she even bothered.

She knew why, of course; Ariel was worth all of it, she was a good and decent person, moment she’d first sat down in the commons with her four years ago, she knew, she knew, she was the one.

Another sigh, Ree pausing at the doorway to her quarters.

Maybe she was trying too hard again, always her problem, and that Sunday drive with the Skipper and the SecGen to Mont Noir hadn’t helped matters.

It was obvious Senior Captain Lanier had been up to her usual attempts at matchmaking, she and Draco both were notorious throughout the service for their attempts at playing bloody Cupid; it wasn’t as if she wasn’t well-intentioned, she was, that was the problem, she cared too much about the people in her life, especially her crew, leaving nothing for her own self.

Probably where the 2ic comes in, silly billy, Ree admonished herself as she stepped through the doorway into her quarters, stripping off her kit, leaving it on the floor as she walked into the washroom, the sonics cutting on the instant she stepped in the shower; a good wife and a hell of a second, it didn’t take Dick Grissom and all his forensic techs to see what they had was the real thing, and it was meant to outlast whatever came their way.

Including this, Ree hoped, as the sonics cleansed the grime, the sweat, and the smell of the pub from her body.

Her own uncle, everyone on ship missed him, but it hurt double for her, being she was family as well as his Skipper.

Another sigh; this had been a long nine days for all of them, felt longer than the past six months of endless patrols and showing the colors throughout human space.

They were at war now, as if the last one hadn’t spilled enough blood all round, both Ree’s parents off God knows where, her mum Andria commanding the Orion and her wing, while her mum Frederica commanded the Blücher, no idea if she’d see either of them again, same as the last fucking war.

That reminded her, she had to get ready for the funeral in another three and a half hours, not much time for her to iron her dress whites, fumble round in her quarters for all her medals and otherwise look presentable.

Stepping out of the shower, she took the sonic cleanser head from the wash basin and shoved it down her throat in an attempt to clean her teeth and get the gluey stench out of her mouth, using the sonic probe at the edge of the washbasin to comb her short, straight, dark hair, as she walked out of the washroom to the wardrobe, retrieving her No. 1WC dress uniform, laying it on the bed, setting up the ironing board, taking the iron down from its recharger, then transferring the uniform tunic to the ironing board, before she rummaged about in her wardrobe for a t-shirt, a pair of boxers, and her dress uniform socks, and got dressed.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 08:26:00 ZULU

“Hey,” Captain Rachel Kelley said weakly through a ruddy haze of pain.

“Hey,” her wife, Pilot Major Julie Marie Ethridge, whispered, Rachel feeling a gentle pressure on her left hand, Rachel squeezing back, only to send a sharp, shooting pain all the way through to her collarbone.

“You’re lucky we could still salvage that arm,” Gem whispered, trying to joke,”after what that tribarrel 50 left of it.”

“Where—” Rachel started to ask.

“Martin Sovereign Rifle Association Hospital, on the Fort Colin Powell reservation,” Gem replied. “We’ve managed to secure about half of the post, the enemy are fighting like hell over the other half; resistance is heaviest at the Mechanized Warfare and Ranger training facilities...”

She sighed, trailing off, not meeting Rachel’s eyes once.

“Luv,” she whispered, dryswallowing,”I-i wish I didn’t have to tell you this...forty-eight of your people didn’t...”

“Fuck,” Rachel interjected, staring up at the ceiling, blinded by tears...almost half her squadron...

“Not your fault, luv,” Rachel whispered, still staring up at the ceiling.

“How about the rest of the regiment?” she asked.

“It’s not good,” Gem replied. “The Hard n’ Fast Fifty-First took over sixty percent casaulties, most of them killed instantly.”

“Crap,” Rachel said...over six hundred dead out of a thousand...

The room shook, the lights dimming briefly.

“Sappers just got the GCG shielding up and running to protect our part of the installation,” Gem said, another near-lightspeed tanc round slamming into the planet entirely too near this hospital, more bomb-pumped graser warheads hurled back toward the enemy, detonating and impacting further away, though Rachel still felt them hit from where she was.

“We’ve lost nearly a million people,” Gem whispered,”and the fight for Muscogee’s still far from over...nearly fifteen million overall since this war started, and...”

She trailed off, holding on to Rachel’s hand for all she was worth, Rachel painfully squeezing back, holding on herself.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 08:48:18 ZULU

“Leave her the hell alone, you bastards!” Earnestine Lucas found herself screaming, as she slammed on the gas, her ‘20 Nissan Sentra screaming down the half circle which was Gibson Valley’s Project Street, straight towards the black and white sons of bitches all over Stacia...

Didn’t even know why she was doing this, she wasn’t that way, she didn’t feel anything for that fat girl but—

One of the men made spiderwebs on her front windshield, as he caromed off her car and onto the ferrocrete, broken and bloody dead, another one of them calling her a “goddam’ crazy-ass bitch!” as he turned away from Stacia—lying there on the street, nothing on except a pair of panties pulled down to her ankles, her glasses bent out of shape and busted up on the sidewalk—to come after her with a ballbat in his hand, the damn thing covered in blood, the black bastard twirling it in his hands like a drum major in a marching band, as he came towards the driver’s side door.

Why was she doing this, she had her babies in the back, all bundled up and strapped in the car seat, facing away from the front, Stacia wasn’t anything but a pain in her ass anyway...

She threw open the driver’s side door at the same time the bastard swung his bat, and she found herself in possession of a genuine Louisville Slugger, made in the factories of the Archipelago asteroid Lord Jim, ironwood with a steel core, just like the ones they used in the major leagues..

Another black boy, no more than ten, maybe, wearing a Terranova Southeastern War Eagles starter jacket, jumped on her, trying to get his filthy hands underneath her near-faded cheerleading t-shirt, Earnestine thrusting the handle of the bat through his MHD shielding, then quickly into that mouth telling her to “show me ‘em titties, bay-bay,” the impact spreading blood, snot and teeth all over the place, knocking him off her long enough for Earnestine to knock a homer out of the park with his knappy head.

Ten years old, Earnestine thought, remembering what she’d said on thefloor Monday night, just time enough for that, not enough time for her to laugh at herself for the lies she’d told, three more men—boys—all wearing designer sports merchandise on their bodies, all coming at her, one with a fusbeam cutter—like the one she’d threatened Stacia with a few days ago, when it had all gotten too close for either woman’s comfort—another with Wolverine claws fired up and burning through her t-shirt and her bra, the third one feeling on the Lil’ Bang he had in his hand.

Earnestine swung that bat for all she was worth, not knowing when she’d ended up with the Lil’ Bang in her free hand, stepping over the white boy she’d taken it from, the one with the Wolverines falling headless and slow-motion to the ground, the one with the cutter dropping his cutter, reaching inside his armorjack, a pair of deuce and a halves spraying him all over the place.

That just left a matching set of hooligans, one white, one black, the black thug shoving his dick down Stacia’s throat, while the white boy was pulling on her hair, shoving his into her from the other end, slapping her ass and screaming,”ride it, fat pony girl!” before he disappeared in a cloud of blood, bone and Crisco, the black boy heaving, trying to go for the gun now laying down at his knees with the rest of his pants at the same time he tried to keep his thing shoved down Stacia’s throat.

More blubber exploded all over the ferrocrete, Stacia looking up at her friend with a wild look in her eyes, screaming,”bitch, lemme the fuck alone!”

Which was the last thing Earnestine planned on doing, as she knelt down beside her, taking her in her arms and holding on tight, as Stacia just blubbered away; she always acted like she was so hard, but deep down...

Deep down, she was just so very vunerable, so needy, a good, honest person who just needed a reason to open up and trust someone the way Earnestine needed to herself.

“’Sall right, baby,” Earnestine whispered through her own tears, kissing the top of Stacia’s head.

“’Sall right,” she whispered again.

17 NOVEMBER, 2276 09:23:00 ZULU

Old Sol rose slowly from the west over the cliffs of Craggy Face, as the crew of the Unbroken stood assembled to bury another of their own.

Slowly, they came up the hill, borne down by the weight of an old friend atop their shoulders, the ten pallbearers, the Director-General of CCI and Jay Todman in front, walking slowly towards the mourners, the wind picking up slightly as it blew in from the Mare Sappho.

A gentle squeeze on her white-gloved left hand...Micki...she needed to take better care of her than she had been, not lean on her as much...

“You’re just fine, luv,” Micki whispered via plant, the pallbearers gently laying the casket down on the bier beside the freshly-dug grave, taking up their positions on either side, Jami letting go of her wife’s hand, walking over to the head of the casket, sighing, starting to say the words she’d come to know and loathe so very well.

These coming out instead:

“Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,Baring teeth that leer like skull’s teeth wicked?Stroke on stroke of pain,—but what slow panic,Goughed these chasms round their fretted sockets?Ever through their hair and from their hands’ palmsMisery swelters. Surely we have perishedSleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

—These are the men whose minds the Dead have ravished.Memory fingers in their hair of murders,Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.Always they must see these things and hear them,Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,Carnage incomparable, and human squanderRucked too thick for these men’s extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormentedBack into their brains, because on their senseSunlight seems like a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.—Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.—Thus their hands are plucking at each other.Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;Snatching at us who smote them, brother,Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.”

—endit—

"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."

—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”